We all know that fashion and aesthetics are cyclical, with bygone styles returning again and again. But few of us were prepared for the abrupt resurgence of Y2K – the collective ‘feel old yet?’ moment – that crashed back into view in 2022. Several years on, the noughties revival shows little sign of slowing. Early-2000s aesthetics continue to play a major role in contemporary visual culture, and the trend has now spilled over into the art world proper.
‘Internet Cafe’, a new exhibition exploring 2000s themes, opened in London last week (30 January 2026) and runs until 7 March 2026. Staged at Sir James Stirling’s fittingly postmodern No.1 Poultry, the exhibition brings together works by 17 artists responding to the decade itself, and to our collective longing for it.
First To Go (2023), Sam Keelan
Presented by Hypha Studios and curated by Juliet Wilson, Internet Cafe spans painting, drawing, photography, print, sculpture and installation. The exhibition places particular emphasis on the disappearance of social and cultural rituals once tied to handheld technology, recalling the gadgets and gizmos of the millennium to pose probing questions about our digitally-centred present.
Let's Rock, Baby (2024), Naomi Boiko-Stapleton
Sam Keelan’s First to Go presents a dreamlike photoscape of a courtroom populated by two nude men and a scattering of Beanie Babies. Charlie Chesterman’s Jelly Bean depicts a lava lamp, its kaleidoscopic form obscuring and refracting a face behind the glass. Naomi Boiko-Stapleton captures the era’s iconic fashion codes – from skinny reading glasses to low-slung velour tracksuits – complete with a tiny dog in homage to the likes of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
Elsewhere, a tombstone to an obsolete desktop computer with the Google homepage glowing on its screen; and neon, glittering dolphins and a unicorn surrounded by hearts and butterflies, by Sam King and Honey Baker respectively, recall the original ‘girlhood’ aesthetic. At the exhibition’s core is a display of Top Trumps cards, first-generation iPods, and Motorola flip phones – fertile ground for millennial memory.
Nokias, Yellow Pages, Furbies – ‘Internet Cafe’ bids them all farewell. The exhibition becomes a tender tribute to the novelties that have quietly slipped away: a Tamagotchi’s final meal, a Blockbuster tape returned but never replaced, the last time your landline phone rang.
'Internet Cafe' is exhibiting at Hypha Gallery 1, No. 1 Poultry, London. Open Wednesday-Saturday: 11am-6pm; Sunday: 12-6pm (closed Monday and Tuesday).