Case study: Coffee Go Versailles, 2025
At Creative Fellowship Foundation, we work with partners who want to go beyond visibility and short-term activation. Our role is to help places, businesses, and institutions define a meaningful cultural presence within their communities — and to turn that vision into a coherent, deliverable, and sustainable program.
Our collaboration with Coffee Go Versailles is a clear example of this approach in practice. Located in the historic center of Versailles, Coffee Go Versailles opened with the ambition to become more than a neighborhood café. From the beginning, the goal was to position the space as a contemporary salon — a place where everyday life, artistic expression, and community exchange could naturally coexist.
Creative Fellowship was invited to develop and deliver a cultural launch strategy that would be rooted in heritage, oriented toward the future, accessible to local residents, and sustainable beyond a single opening event. Rather than designing isolated activities, we began by defining a clear cultural positioning: a place where heritage meets the future. This concept became the backbone of the entire program, shaping artistic choices, communication tone, visual identity, and institutional dialogue.
From there, we translated this vision into a structured, six-month cultural launch aligned with key international and European cultural moments. The intention was to create continuity and rhythm, allowing audiences to return, recognize the space as culturally active, and gradually feel part of its story.
The program opened with The Future Is Now, an international Ready2Print window exhibition showcasing works by young artists. Presented directly in the café’s windows, the exhibition transformed Coffee Go Versailles into an open gallery visible to the public throughout the day. Curated by Petra Zublasing — industrial artist and two-time Olympic athlete — the exhibition established Coffee Go Versailles’ cultural identity from the outset. Beyond curating the exhibition, we managed the participation of the artists and curator, coordinated logistics, and designed engagement mechanisms that extended beyond the physical display. Together with Petra, we also developed and printed a 2026 planner illustrated with selected exhibition artworks, chosen through a public Instagram vote. This turned the exhibition into a participatory experience and allowed it to live on as a tangible cultural object.
Importantly, Petra Zublasing was hosted in person in Versailles during the exhibition period. Her presence created direct dialogue around the project and reinforced the café’s role not only as an exhibition site, but as a place of living exchange between artists, curators, and the local community.
Building on this momentum, Coffee Go Versailles took part in European Heritage Days by hosting an intimate Baroque concert inside the café. Featuring young violinist Mihaela Lazareva, supported through Creative Fellowship programs, the concert reimagined Versailles’ salon tradition in a contemporary, informal setting. The performance was also live-streamed on Instagram, extending its reach beyond the city and reinforcing Coffee Go Versailles’ visibility as a cultural space connected to living heritage.
For World Opera Day, we deliberately moved away from traditional formats and invited audiences to play with opera. Drawing inspiration from classic opera buffa, we worked with a graphic artist to transform librettos into comic-style story cards. Customers were invited to assemble their own opera plots, choose a composer, and submit their stories to an AI model that generated new arias inspired by historical musical styles. These arias were compiled into a public playlist released on World Opera Day, and the most-played track was rewarded with two tickets to the Opéra Royal de Versailles. In this way, heritage, participation, and digital experimentation came together in an accessible and playful format.
In December, the program returned to youth art in a more intimate way. To reconnect with the Ready2Print exhibition, a young artist was invited to sketch live portraits of café visitors. With the purchase of a coffee, guests received a hand-drawn portrait, turning an everyday visit into a personal artistic encounter. This shift — from youth art in the windows to youth art in direct dialogue — reinforced Coffee Go Versailles’ identity as a modern salon where culture happens between people.
The year concluded with a participatory Advent program that invited guests to match vintage or handcrafted Christmas ornaments with personal stories. Creative Fellowship developed the visual concept for the Advent windows, coordinated a window-dressing specialist, and organised a professional photo shoot of the vintage and handcrafted Christmas ornaments that were later used in the window installation. These images supported both the physical decoration process and the daily Instagram storytelling campaign that accompanied the Advent period. The program culminated in an online silent ornament auction, uniting on-site visitors and digital followers in a shared seasonal ritual of memory and generosity.
Throughout the entire process, Creative Fellowship acted as concept developer, cultural producer, talent manager, and communications lead. We prepared institutional materials for the Mayor’s Office, managed artists and contributors, designed participatory formats, and ensured continuity between physical experiences and digital storytelling. Our role was to make sure that cultural ambition was matched with operational clarity, public value, and professional execution.
This case demonstrates what we do for our partners. We help them define their cultural role, translate values into deliverable programs, manage artists and institutions professionally, and create participation that builds long-term engagement. For us, culture is not decoration. It is a strategic tool for connection, loyalty, and lasting impact.
Whether working with a local business, a brand, a cultural venue, or a public institution, Creative Fellowship designs cultural frameworks that build trust, activate community participation, and generate long-term public value. By embedding creativity into everyday activities, we help partners move from visibility to relevance and integrate social purpose into their daily operations.
