It’s that time of year when you start to reflect, look back, and look at the plans for the coming year.
I am looking back at the last 5 years since I began as Artistic Director. Joining the organisation in 2020 with an ambitious vision to radically transform the cultural landscape. This work first had to begin with iniva itself. As an organisation that was finding its feet in a new location at the UAL Chelsea campus in Pimlico, we soon had to adjust to work remotely and over time have recruited new team members. While this forced sejour from the library and archive collection was a testing time, it made us realise that without being physically onsite at the Stuart Hall Library you could not get access to our collections.
When we returned to the office greedy to feast our eyes on what we had been missing we found that Research Network reading groups and our Artist Kitchen Salons were a way to resocialise our bodies. Hours on Zoom couldn’t replace the experience of being in the presence of other bodies, speaking, laughing, listening and eating together.
In different parts of the country, we worked on Future Collect with artists and curators to commission new works to be acquired into collections while plotting exhibitions. Supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, artists Jade de Montserrat, Emii Alrai and Maria Amidu have made three sensitive and yet audacious works challenging their practice. All works are now part of collections in Manchester Art Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield and Towner Eastbourne. We also worked on CoLAB, a programme that gave space for young people to work creatively alongside artists and therapists in schools. In partnership with Stuart Hall Foundation, we made open calls for residencies and hosted their curiosity and ideas in the Library.
Internationally, with the support of European Cultural Foundation and British Council, we developed a digital pavilion that operates beyond borders. This year, with Unseen Guests, we were in dialogue with artists from the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa. Venice has become not only a place to gather and experience art from across the world, but to retreat in a mode of collective study.
With the support from Arts Council England, we have continued as a National Portfolio Organisation as well as our work supported by Freelands Foundation we’ve strengthened our team. iniva is led by a co-directorship with the appointment of Susie Gorgeous as Finance and Operations Director.
2025 will be a period of research and development as we gather our evaluation of the last 5 years with a new vision. We develop our programmes so that everyone should know about the histories and legacies of Internationalism and the Black British Arts movement. We believe that art has a role to play in transforming our imagination, and as a tool for social, spatial and environmental justice. We want our communities to see their stories reflected and gain an understanding of art from a globalised perspective. Art offers an opportunity for us to come together even with deferring options, and share knowledge from our lived experiences.
Photo by Francis Augusto
Sharing practices of rest is what brought us together for The Gathering 2024 earlier this year. We cannot deny that the exhaustion highlighted through the pandemic, the ongoing necropolitics playing out in Gaza, Sudan, Congo and other parts of the world, not least to mention the racial tension that arose across the country this year, have left us bereft.
It’s no longer possible to continue on the treadmill not sensing, thinking and feeling in community. We must move forward with embodied leadership. Yes, we want to see change, but this might include acknowledging rest as a radical form of resistance. While we continue to believe in art as something that can tangibly contribute to the production of life, we can channel perspectives that may shape our views so that it can give form to a world we want future generations to inherit. Art also speaks to environmental, social and political conditions of its production, highlighting that we can make change.
We see a future where iniva’s work is made more widely accessible because we believe that since its inception, iniva could see that art from a globalised perspective enriches our lives, creates a greater sense of our place in the world and has the potential to be transformative.
If you believe in the work that we do – invest in securing our future.
Photo by Francis Augusto
We want to thank all the artists, therapists, cultural workers, producers and funders that we have worked with this year as well as the formidable team at iniva. We reopen the Stuart Hall Library on Wednesday 8 January 2025 and we look forward to welcoming you back.
Until then we hope you find a moment to rest.
Sepake Angiama
Artistic Director, iniva