'Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025' curated by Lubaina Himid at ICA, London
6 June 2025
From 24 June – 7 September, ICA London presents 'Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025' curated by Lubaina Himid. This major group exhibition and event programme curated by Lubaina Himid celebrates 40 years since The Thin Black Line, the groundbreaking group show of young Black and Asian women artists at the ICA in 1985.
In the early 1980s Himid curated three exhibitions of young Black and Asian women artists, positioning their practices at the fore of debates in the British art world: Five Black Women, Africa Centre (1983), Black Woman Time Now, Battersea Arts Centre (1983 – 84), The Thin Black Line, ICA (1985 c86). Developing within the wider discourse surrounding the British Black Arts Movement, these landmark exhibitions platformed female artists, highlighting the intersections between race and gender. Now, 40 years since the original presentation at the same venue, Connecting Thin Black Lines seeks to expand contemporary interpretations and conversations around the practices of these eleven artists today.
At Lisson Gallery, Finding My Blue Sky builds into a chorus of voices and histories. Its starting point was a series of conversations between Omar Kholeif and Lubaina Himid (b. 1954), in which Himid recounted her childhood in 1960s England: daily journeys to school by bus, and the experience of accompanying her mother, a textile designer, to colonial ‘independence’ ceremonies at the embassies of African nations. On the walls outside 27 Bell Street is a set of murals by Himid – emblematic enlargements of her Freedom Kanga paintings, inspired by East African kanga garments. In one mural, the phrase “There could be an endless ocean” appears beneath a pair of crimson lungs. The text, also a textile of a kind, has an aptly double resonance, channeling the show’s intimation of infinitude – its appeal to visitors’ boundless imaginations – while voicing a darker hypothesis concerning the climate emergency.
Find out more via ICA.
Image: Lubaina Himid, Venetian Maps: Shoemakers, 1997. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Hollybush Gardens, London and Greene Naftali, New York © Lubaina Himid.
