'In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation' featuring Haroon Mirza and Ai Weiwei at Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea, United Kingdom

5 August 2025

Until 13 September 2025, Focal Point Gallery presents ‘In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation’ featuring Haroon Mirza and Ai Weiwei. This exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Roberts Institute of Art, bringing together over 25 works, some of which have never been shown in a public gallery before, from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, one of the UK’s foremost private collections. The exhibition engages with the theme of translation – through storytelling and myth, history and memory, language and materiality – and features a newly commissioned installation and performance by Haroon Mirza.

‘In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation’ considers translation as an act of movement and transformation. At a time when anything can seem open to interpretation, yet nothing appears to hold the exhibition asks: how do we engage with multiple perspectives without collapsing into relativism? How can we communicate across distances while still recognising differences? How do we engage with others – people, histories, ideas – without assuming full knowledge or easy equivalence?

Find out more via Focal Point Gallery.

Image: Installation view of ‘In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation’, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, 2025. Courtesy Focal Point Gallery, the Roberts Institute of Art and the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Photo: Anna Lukala.