July 8–September 11, 2022
The complete roster of artists taking part in the 2022 edition of the Brent Biennial, which runs from July 8 to September 11, is now available.
Curator Eliel Jones and the 2022 curatorial committee Adam Farah, Jamila Prowse, and Abbas Zahedi bring together artists and community groups whose work explores the many meanings of homemaking. They ask how, and why, the act of making home can be a form of resistance and survival within the context of hostile environments, including those of racial hostility.
Curator Eliel Jones: “The artists and community groups that have been invited to participate in the second edition of the Brent Biennial all speak in various ways to the immigrant, queer and feminist traditions that have for a long time nurtured a sense of home in Brent and beyond. These are practices that are built within friendship, chosen families, love and collaboration, and they offer resolute antidotes to patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist, heteronormative and ableist systems of power”.
Kilburn, Willesden, and Harlesden are three cluster places in the south of the North West London borough where the Biennial is held. It includes 12 projects by artists Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah, Rasheed Araeen, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Rebecca Bellantoni, Ed Webb-Ingall, Linett Kamala, Mahmoud Khaled, Zinzi Minott, Shenece Oretha, Katarzyna Perlak, Mohammed Zaahidur Rahman, and Sarah Rose, which are displayed in 10 different venues and public spaces.
Sadia Pineda Hameed, Theo White, Jorell Bonnick, and Kamile Ofoeme, four new public realm commissions, are displayed on billboards in the boroughs of Brent and Clapham in collaboration with the companies BuildHollywood and Studio Voltaire.
Through an expanded program of activity with numerous local partners, including two curated projects by ActionSpace, London’s leading development agency for artists with learning disabilities, and Harlesden High Street, a project that champions contemporary art by local and international artists and centers work by people of color, more artists and practitioners from Brent and beyond will come to participate in the Biennial.
Community-led commissions
In the House of my Love recognises and celebrates the gifts brought to light and shared by communities across Brent, through a collaborative commissioning process in partnerships with four key organisations: Asian Women’s Resource Centre, Sufra Foodbank and Kitchen North West London, Young Roots and Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust. Most of the community-led commissions, which are being developed in consultation with communities across the borough through a series of artist-facilitated workshops, will extend beyond the Brent Biennial dates, and be realised in the long-term life of Metroland Cultures.
Public programme
Accompanying the Biennial exhibition will be a public programme of talks, workshops, screenings and family activities curated by Shama Khanna, Associate Curator for Public Programmes. The events will gather together community-building practices that centre creativity, healing, listening, showing up for others and asking bold questions, in what can otherwise be a dizzying political environment. The intention with the public programme is to nurture conversations and connections that can help to find one’s voice and feel supported in taking a stand against hostility.
Find out more about the Brent Biennial 2022.