Performance by Elsa James

This event is free and open to all.

Elsa James

Elsa James is an artist and activist who lives and works in Essex. As a Black British woman, James's practice is driven by a profound yearning to dig deep into, and engage with, her Caribbean and African heritage. She works across live performance, film, printmaking, spoken word, neon and sound to create artworks invested in an ongoing questioning of visibility and belonging that centres Blackness as a methodology for liberation.

Recent solo exhibitions and performances include the National Maritime Museum, London (2024); Museum of London Docklands, London (2023); Tate Britain, London (2023); and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2022). Her work is also included in group exhibitions at Copperfield, London (2024); The Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Canada (2024); a major Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition (2024-25); and Gagosian, London (2023).

Her work is held in public collections, including the UK Government Art Collection and Beecroft Art Gallery, where she became the first Black British artist to be acquired for the gallery's collection.

Christine Eyene

Christine Eyene is an art historian, critic and curator. She is Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Liverpool John Moores University and Research Curator at Tate Liverpool.

From 2012 to March 2022, Eyene was a Research Fellow in Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire where she worked on Making Histories Visible, a multidisciplinary visual arts research project led by Lubaina Himid, Professor of Contemporary Art and 2017 Turner Prize winner. In this framework, Eyene developed new research on feminism, sound art, and photography. She recently completed her PhD at Birkbeck, University of London, on the relationship between African literature and visual representation in the work of South African photographer George Hallett (1942-2020) under the supervision of Professor Annie E. Coombes.

Eyene’s areas of research and curatorial practice encompass contemporary African and Diaspora arts, feminism, photography, and non-object-based art practices notably sound art. Her other interests include: socially-engaged initiatives, urban culture, music, design, and new media.

Photograph: 'Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar', Film still, London, Sugar & Slavery Gallery, Museum of London Docklands, Image: Andy Delaney 2023.

Event Venue

Mimosa House, 47 Theobalds Road, London, United Kingdom