Q&A with Migrate Art Founder Simon Butler: “The more people we can collaborate with, the bigger impact we’ll have.”

Migrate Art was founded in 2016 by curator, social entrepreneur and artist Simon Butler, who collaborates with some of the world's most renowned contemporary artists to raise funds for refugees and homeless people. Here he tells us why he came up with the idea of setting up the charitable organisation, how he came to work with artists like Anish Kapoor and how he’s helped people affected by the war in Ukraine. 

How did you come up with the idea of setting up Migrate Art? 

I was working at Newport Street Gallery in London and I began to question why I was working in art and what the purpose of art is. Around the same time, my brother, who’s a filmmaker, was telling me in a pub about his experience making a film in the Calais jungle. Two weeks later, I jumped on a coach and travelled there and had a really profound experience. In the contemporary art world, everyone's focused on getting things that they don't have and always wanting more. So I decided I wanted to combine those two realities to actually help people.

How did you start Migrate Art? Who was the first artist you managed to collaborate with? 

I came back to London and just emailed all the artists I could think of. Julian Opie first donated a canvas, which sold at Christie's and then the project just sort of grew from there and it became my full-time job in 2018. In the beginning we gave 100% of the money to charity and then as the project developed and since it became my full-time job, we give 80% to charity and keep 20% to ensure we can keep going. 

How did you approach the artists and convince them to donate their works? 

It’s like a game of Tetris. It's a lot of work and artists get asked to collaborate on these kinds of projects numerous times a week. So we started thinking about how we could make it more of a collaboration. When I went back to the Calais jungle in early 2017, the French authorities were tearing it down, but there were still signs that people had been living there. I filled bags and bags with objects and I drove it back to London. There were all these colouring pencils so I started sending the physical pencils to artists’ studios. I think that emotional connection cut through all the other requests they were getting and slowly we started getting people to say yes. But at the start it was relentless rejection. 

You’ve raised over 1.5 million pounds — how have you been so successful in terms of sales? 

Well the artwork is the hook. The reason people come to us is that we work with an artist they like. We've got them and we can talk about these wider issues that are going on in the world, which breeds more empathy and compassion. We've got people that have been supporting us for years because they care about the artists we work with, but they also care about the causes we support. I think because I worked in the art world for eight years, I understand their language. I'm not coming in completely cold. I think that's where a lot of charities fall short.