Institute of International Visual Arts
About iniva
Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva) was founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit organisation to address the new internationalism of the visual arts in the United Kingdom and the broad and multi-cultural artistic communities contributing to the cultural landscape.
Radical artistic practices associated with iniva break from the conventions of art by addressing the effects of social-political movements, cultural affinities, anticolonial struggles, entangled geographies and hybrid identities of our globalised world. iniva emerged out of artist-led conversations with Gavin Jantjes, Sarah Wason, David A Bailey, Sonia Boyce, Rasheed Araeen and cultural theorist Stuart Hall asking the question, what could a new model for a cultural institution look like, that speaks to the diverse, hybrid and shared experience of a confluent cultural heritage. iniva is a home for those artists who identified with an ‘out of placeness’ and that wished to find affinity in relation with each other through a shared of common experience of being from ‘here’ but also relating to ‘an elsewhere’.
Arts Council England, from the inception of iniva, recognised the importance of supporting a non-Eurocentric led organisation that gave space to articulating a language for future generations of artists interested in continuing the dialogue of the Black Arts Movements and furthering the conversation across the boundaries of difference. The conference, A New Internationalism held at Tate in April 1994 brought together a number of key and influential international artists and scholars to debate the significance of new internationalisms in the arts and to speculate on its relevance for the future.
Today our work primarily focuses on centring the voices of an emerging generation of artists while maintaining a dialogue with artists who are now seen as more established. Nurturing, supporting and developing artists through building networks that build communities of practice where ideas from altering perspectives is still at the heart of our work. We do this through maintaining a library and archive collection as well as organising programmes for artists and communities.
Our Vision
Everyone should know the global histories and legacies of Internationalism and Black British Arts Movement.
Our Mission
We nurture and support anti-racist & equitable spaces for an ecology and community of practice with Global Majority artists and communities for everyone.
Our Values
Care, Community, Collaboration, Access, Education, Justice and Joy.
Our History
The Institute of International Visual Arts has progressed through three main iterations – initially established in East London as an arts agency, then into a gallery-based model at Rivington Place, and under the directorship of Melanie Keen iniva focussed on the Stuart Hall Library as the heart of programming. iniva has undergone a scaled transformation fit for purpose as a research-led institution moving its base to Pimlico in 2018. iniva is nestled within an arts ecology between the University of the Arts – Chelsea and the Tate Britain. iniva is also home to the unique world-renowned collection of the Stuart Hall Library which contains over 10,000 books from exhibition catalogues, theory texts, periodicals zines and artist monographs. The library is public facing, on the street-level and freely accessible to all who are looking for a space to widen their knowledge and understanding of art history from a globalised perspective.
In 2020, the new Artistic Director, Sepake Angiama, was appointed to take the organisation forward into a new dynamic era. As Director she has continued to strengthen the work of iniva as a small-scale but robust research organisation experimenting with new social forms of artistic research and institutional practice. The new direction of the institution expands upon the relevance and significance of the Stuart Hall Library fostering, nurturing and supporting dialogic and collective exchange, to grow social and research practices and engage with creative communities, locally, nationally and internationally.
In 2024, she was joined by Finance & Operations Director Susannah Gorgeous, and the executive responsibility is now shared between both directors. From 2025, they will have a Head of Development to complement the directorship to ensure the development and sustainability of the organisation going forward.