This year, Himid will revisit a 1985 show of art by Black women which she was forced to stage in a corridor at the ICA which ran from the bar to the toilet – a far cry from the expansive halls of the British pavilion.
Lubaina Himid, the artist known for her large stage-set-style installations that draw attention to figures overlooked by history, has been picked by the British Council to represent the UK at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
All three artists are pioneers of Black British art, for instance participating in the First National Black Art Convention, which was held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1982.
Their work was often overlooked or marginalised by the predominantly white mainstream art establishment, an experience which Himid says will influence her approach to the pavilion.
“We absolutely thought of ourselves as artists, but we were often in places that weren’t dedicated to the showing of art,” Himid said, citing multidisciplinary arts spaces like the Africa Centre and ICA in London.
