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Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts

Name: Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts
Address: 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P4JU, GB
Telephone: +442076301278
Price range: £

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Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts

Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts Iniva is an evolving, radical visual arts organisation developing an artistic programme that reflects

19/02/2025

iniva is committed to fostering respectful and inclusive online spaces that align with our core values of equity, diversity, and cultural understanding. After careful consideration, we've made the decision to transition away from X (formerly Twitter). The platform's evolving culture, censorship, and disinformation no longer resonate with our values, nor do they provide the kind of environment we believe is conducive to meaningful engagement with our community.

As such, we are now prioritising new platforms such as Discord and Bluesky, alongside our current social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube, where we believe we can build a more positive and productive online experience.

We also believe that we can build stronger and more authentic connections with our audience via in-person conversations and programming at the Stuart Hall Library.

We invite you to join us on our new platforms.

https://linktr.ee/iniva_arts

18/02/2025

It was a pleasure hosting Brian Muraya at the Stuart Hall Library, iniva for the past two weeks! 💖

We had some fantastic conversations about community engagement through programming, libraries, and knowledge sharing. 🗨At the end of his residency, Brian also led an inspiring poetry gathering, 'Against Witness.' The poems shared at the gathering are now available at iniva's archive at Stuart Hall Library. 📖

Brian's time with us at Stuart Hall Library is part of Braiding Sessions, a partnership programme between Stuart Hall Library, iniva, and Karara Community Library, down river road. 🤝

The project is supported by the British Council through the UK/Kenya Season 2025 Catalyst Grant.

📸 1: Brian with the artist monograph, 'Maud Sulter: Passion' (AS SUL) at Stuart Hall Library
📸 2: Books from the Stuart Hall Library that Brian was reading
📸 3: Brian with iniva's Curator Beatriz, and Archivist, Kaitlene
📸 4: 'Against Witness' poetry gathering at Stuart Hall Library
📸 5: June Pamphlet Launch at Reference Point
📸 6: June Pamphlet

12/02/2025

👋 Say hi to Rebecca Sinker who has a long relationship with iniva as a research fellow, consultant, and trustee. In the past year, she took up the role as our interim Business Manager, supporting us with operational and strategic development at iniva. 🎊

“iniva has always been a place of discovery, critique, and inspiration for me – but how to choose from this library of treasures?” 💎

Thinking of iniva’s long-standing radical education work, Rebecca decides to highlight and celebrate the DARE CD-ROM, a project which she produced as a research fellow with iniva and Middlesex University in the 2000s. 💿

Rebecca shares, “This interactive learning resource was developed through a period of creative action research in Columbia Road Primary School, with artists Barby Asante and Maria Amidu. We were given the freedom to playfully explore concepts, materials, language and artworks, beyond traditional references and outside the National Curriculum framework. We worked with young children who then helped devise, create content, and user-test the activities. Art as experience, art as possibility!” 🎆

She fondly remembers a joyous Helio Oiticia-inspired 'Parangole' session led by Barby, transforming the classroom into a dance floor with a Tropicália soundtrack. She also recalls Maria's incredible giant 'body map' project – a collective portrait of 30 children, filling the entire school hall, which Rebecca then photographed and incorporated into the CD's interactive interface. 🕺

We’re also very excited that our Archivist Kaitlene Koranteng is in the process of cataloguing and digitising this work, along with many other gems from iniva’s rich history of art and education projects, making them available online and accessible for everyone! 🙌

11/02/2025

"I hope [The Gathering] will become a staple item in iniva's programme going forward and that you'll find ways to make similar experiences accessible to even more young people" - Marlene Smith 🌱

Here are some of the highlights from Day 2’s workshops:

🩵 Led by artist and movement teacher Shanice Bryce, Edible Bouquets centred on the urban garden as a playground for meditation, nourishment, and play, and invited participants to create an edible bouquet using seasonal vegetation.

🤎 Accompanied by live music with collaborator cellist Simone Seals, Mele Broomes led us through a workshop that emphasised on restoration and conditioning through a harmonious blend of active, passive, strengthening, and restorative movements.

💛 Plants for Medicine, Ritual, and Resistance was a workshop led by Bekah Williams from Earthchild Remedies where we learnt to make our own herbal tea blends, and participated in a meditative tea tasting and a soothing sound bath.

The Gathering 2024 was a weekend in late October last year where we explored ways of rest through a series of workshops that were built around the pillars of Mind, Practice, Embodiment, Environment, and Nourishment.

📸

The Gathering 2024 is produced with Free Form and supported by Freelands Foundation.

10/02/2025

Join Library Manager Jack Mulvaney for a lunchtime sharing session and a reading group the following week where we will explore the sounds, literature and audio-visual material around the genre of Detroit techno and its great beyond, looking at the pioneers of the genre such as Robert Hood, Cybotron, and Jeff Mills. The reading group will feature extracts from Kodwo Eshun and Der Klang Der Familie.

🎟 Both events are free, but booking is required! Book your place in the links below!

𝗢𝗻 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲: 𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗶𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸
🗓 Thursday 20 February 2025
🕰 1pm - 2pm
📍 Stuart Hall Library
🔗 https://billetto.co.uk/e/on-our-table-detroit-techno-tickets-1169473?utm_source=organiser&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_content=1

𝗢𝗻 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲: 𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗶𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽
🗓 Wednesday 26 February 2025
🕰 5:30pm - 7:30pm
📍Stuart Hall Library
🔗 https://billetto.co.uk/e/on-our-table-detroit-techno-reading-group-tickets-1169476?utm_source=organiser&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_content=1

09/02/2025

Sunday reading sorted! 📖

Dive into the first part of Archivist Kaitlene Koranteng's research diary about her travels to Accra and Tamale in Ghana last summer. Supported by the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant, she explored archival and collecting practices in Ghanaian organisations. 🇬🇭📁📚

Read the first part of her research diary on our blog now! 📓
https://iniva.org/salvage-repair-repeat-archival-research-trip-accra-and-tamale/

📸 Kaitlene Koranteng in front of backdrop at Jamestown Jamestown Café. Photo taken by Agbongua Kwadwo Buenortey Okor.
📸 Objects at Museum of Archaeology at the University of Ghana.
📸 Dikan Centre Library.
📸 QUILOMBO: An afternoon with Beatriz Nascimento at LOATAD.
📸 Kaitlene and Ghanaian-American artist Rita Mawuena Bennissan in front of Rita’s work at Gallery 1957.

07/02/2025

Meet our consultants for our project, Living Legacies: Collaboration, Community and Radicality! ⭐

iniva was recently awarded a Development grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform community engagement with the legacies of iniva’s archive. Living Legacies: Collaboration, Community and Radicality project aims to open up the heritage of diasporic artists who have shaped Black and international art movements.

From left to right, we have Susan Dymond (Interpretation Planner), Ananda Rutherford (Copyright & Archive Consultant), Rinku Mitra (Activity Planner), Neena Sohal (Activity Planner), and Amanda Cusimano (Evaluation Planner). The consultants work closely with Tavian, our Living Legacies Project Manager, and Sepake, our Artistic Director, to critically test our assumptions around our archive to help shape the next phase of Living Legacies.

Read more about the project here:
https://iniva.org/meet-our-living-legacies-project-consultants/

05/02/2025

Say hello to our new Finance & Operations Director, and Co-Director, Susie Gorgeous! 🎇

Susie has been working hard to make sure iniva runs smoothly as a radically evolving visual arts organisation dedicated to nurturing and supporting critical artistic research and practice, centring Global Majority and diaspora perspectives.

Susie previously worked as a freelance consultant. Before that, she was Co-Executive Director at Streetwise Opera, a UK-based charity that enables people who’ve experienced homelessness to find inspiration and empowerment while they rebuild their lives and identities.

She’s holding the recently acquired book, ‘Doorways: Women, Homelessness, Trauma, and Resistance’ by artist Bekki Perriman. Stemming from Perriman’s personal experience, the book documents the artist’s photographic work from The Doorways Project, and collates a series of interviews with women experiencing street homelessness, alongside essays and commentary by writers who explore the cultural, social, and political dimensions of homelessness, as well as the role of artists and institutions in challenging it. The book is available to read at the Stuart Hall Library. 📚

Susie shares, "I'm delighted and proud to be working with such a talented and strong team, and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2025 has in store for iniva." 🌟

04/02/2025

Here's a summary of our February event line-up!

Tap the link 🔗 to reserve your spot for the talks and workshops, and to know more about iniva's programmes this month!✨

https://iniva.org/programme/

01/02/2025

Stuart Hall Library was visited by interdisciplinary artist Osman Yousefzada who found his catalogue 'Osman Yousefzada : What is Seen & What is Not' on our shelves.

This book accompanies the Solo Interventions at the V&A and includes documented photographs of the interventions as well as a series of critical essays around the work to open up conversations around domesticity, female migration, movement and coming together as a community.

We're also hosting a talk by Osman Yousefzada and writer and curator, Ekow Eshun. Their conversation will explore Yousefzada's sculptural installation 'When will we be good enough' at The Box, Plymouth, and discuss relevant themes of power, colonialism, class, race, and examine how contemporary art addresses the pressing issues of our time.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐞 𝐛𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡?
𝘈 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘖𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘧𝘻𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘬𝘰𝘸 𝘌𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘯
🗓️ Wednesday 19 February 2025
🕰️ 6pm - 8pm
📍 Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
🎟️ Free admission, but booking is required.
https://ow.ly/AVvE50UPtsV

This event is presented by iniva and The Box, and supported by UAL Decolonising Arts Institute and Chelsea Space.

31/01/2025

The Gathering 2024 was a weekend in late October last year where we explored ways of rest through a series of workshops that were built around the pillars of Mind, Practice, Embodiment, Environment, and Nourishment. 🌱

As Anna-Maria Nabirye puts it, it was "two days of pure joyful convening, investigation and experiential practice of rest and restoration in community." ⭐

Here are some of the highlights from Day 2's workshops:

🤎 Deep K Kailey led us on a Simran session that introduced us to a focused practice for the mind. Simran aims to bring lasting clarity about our true selves and reality, leading to a natural and effortless state of peace.

🩵 A Black Feminist Manifesto for Radical Rest with Evie Muir took us on an embodied nature writing workshop, which was an experimental and experiential space where we moved through our personal and collective relationships with rest.

💛 Interconnecting Threads with Maymana Arefin was a workshop where we used recycled sari fabric and ribbons to collaboratively create large woven pieces, highlighting the power of communal craft.

Stay tuned as we continue to share the workshops on Day 2 of The Gathering 2024 ✨ You can also look back on previous posts to find out more about the programme 🌱

📸 Photography by Francis Augusto

The Gathering 2024 is produced with Free Form and supported by Freelands Foundation.

30/01/2025

London-based painter Ruby Dickson recently dropped by Stuart Hall Library to donate her latest catalogue for her 2024 exhibition, 'Maybe my fairy tale has a different ending than I dreamed it would. But that's OK'. 🌟

As an artist of Irish and Jamaican descent, Dickson uses her investigation into contemporary spectacle to reflect upon the ambiguity and constant redistribution with our cultural identification processes, using the specific temporality and materiality of paint to analyse contemporary modes of production, circulation and consumption of images.

Her monograph, under shelf mark [AS DIC], is now available at Stuart Hall Library.

The Stuart Hall Library is open Tuesdays to Fridays, 10am to 5pm. 📚

25/01/2025

Huge shout out to Jenny Starr, Executive Director of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, who recently dropped by Stuart Hall Library. ⭐

Jenny was previously Development Manager at iniva for 10 years and says: “I am very proud to have had played a part in the making of this beautiful series of Emotional Learning Cards over the last 10 years. Created alongside art therapy organisation A Space, each set of cards features provocative, evocative artwork by artists from broad cultural heritages and diasporas with therapeutic prompts for enhanced wellbeing and understanding of ourselves and others”. 🃏

The series of emotional learning cards are available in iniva’s shop. 🛍️

https://iniva.org/product-category/emocards/

24/01/2025

What is rest to you?

Last Autumn, we spent a weekend at The Gathering 2024 exploring ways of rest and how to bring them back to our communities through a series of workshops. 🌱

We ended the first day with these:

💛_Draft Day with Resolve Collective explored various stages of development within our practices and organisations, focusing on the approaches of Gentle Radical.

🩵 Place is a Pause with Sepake Angiama and Dhiyandra Natalegawa explored “space” and “place” thinking with Yi-Fu Twan’s ‘Space & Place: The Perspective of Experience’ through mapping, writing, and paper sculptures.

🤎 Notes from the Veranda with Foluke Taylor explored how collective writing and reading can help us navigate conditions of containment, exploring rest, creativity, and freedom as interconnected acts of restoration and liberation.

💛 Interludes: Sound Ritual with Axel Kacoutié and Lou Mensah explored the healing potential of sound through a meditative consideration of our own practices and responding to artist prompts from the series.

Stay tuned as we share the workshops on Day 2 of The Gathering 2024 ✨ You can also look back on previous posts to find out more about the programme 🌱

📸 Photographs by Francis Augusto

The Gathering 2024 is produced with Free Form and supported by Freelands Foundation.

https://iniva.org/programme/projects/the-gathering-2024/

18/01/2025

Say hi to Lola Hatmil who has been volunteering with us at Stuart Hall Library!

Lola is currently retired but had previously worked in a variety of positions including personal assistant to the London Daily News’ Editor, and a Mental Health Services Administrator. London-born and Berkshire-based, Lola is of parental Jamaican and adopted Guyanese heritage, and is a practising Nichiren Buddhist and member of Soka Gakkai International since 1985. She is interested in Black art history, and photojournalism from 1940s to 60s.

Lola says “volunteering at iniva stems from several years of interest in Stuart Hall’s philosophy of multiculturalism. It has been an honour – and a weekly Thursday pleasure – to witness the solid book-filled role his legacy presents at the library.”

Holding the book ‘Aubrey Williams: Art, Histories, Futures’ by Ian Dudley and Maridowa Williams from the Stuart Hall Library, Lola shares “In November last year, I was tasked with documenting the index and straightaway I recalled that not only have I been good friends with two of his nieces for over 30 years but that we are also loyally linked together by our Guyanese heritage. This book is the first comprehensive exploration of Williams’ art, addressing the Indigenous, ecological, and transnational dimensions of his modernist paintings. In addition, his daughter, Maridowa Williams offers an intimate look at the biographical dimensions of his work up until his death in 1990.”

16/01/2025

Though it's a new year, we are still thinking of the amazing workshops that we had at The Gathering 2024

💛 Workshops from The Gathering 2024 Day 1 💛

Liquid Strategies with Angela Dennis explored somatic movement practice using layered art-making within a ritual setting.

Savouring Stories with Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma invited participants to share their culinary recollections and archive their stories through zine-making, collage art, and storytelling.

Oikos facilitated by Exodus Crooks was a workshop that uses sculpture to collectively reflect on our current structures, possibilities, and needs in relation to our physical environment.

There were so many more invocations, workshops, and moments shared during The Gathering Weekend, stay tuned as we continue to look back on this seminal programme.✨

The Gathering 2024 is produced with Free Form and supported by Freelands Foundation.

15/01/2025

Join us for a lunchtime sharing session where we will explore the books and zines surrounding the topic of rest that informed our seminal programme last year, The Gathering 2024. 🎇

The Gathering offered a space for artists and cultural workers to convene in exploration of restorative practices to build frameworks for a more sustainable arts ecology. Utilising the five pillars of the programme – Practice, Environment, Nourishment, Mind, and Embodiment – as anchor points, this reading list is an entryway to encourage rest in our own creative practices. ❣️

Led by Library Manager Jack Mulvaney and Assistant Librarian Charlotte Mui, this informal session will include an introduction to iniva and the Stuart Hall Library, our programme, and also the books that are featured in the reading list. 📚

𝐎𝐧 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞: 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬
📅 Thursday 30 January 2025
🕰️ 1pm - 2pm
📍 Stuart Hall Library
🎟️Free, but booking is required!

https://ow.ly/LnAb50UGNR7

13/01/2025

Read our first newsletter of 2025 which includes Notes on Gathering written by our Artistic Director, Sepake Angiama; announcements and teasers for upcoming events; as well as exhibition and open call recommendations.

https://mailchi.mp/iniva.org/news-events-january-2025

Address

16 John Islip Street
London
SW1P4JU

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5:15pm

Telephone

+442076301278

Website

http://www.iniva.org/

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Videos

Volunteer with us! 📚 We are looking to recruit four library volunteers to support the activities of Stuart Hall Library. This is a tailor-made volunteering experience to support interests in contemporary art and working in libraries. Ideal for budding librarians, students or those looking to gain research skills, public speaking skills or bookshop experience. This opportunity for someone available for one day per week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (days can be flexible) for 6 months between 10 am – 5 pm from September 2024 – March 2025. No prior experience is needed but we hope you are willing to learn more about art libraries. Travel and lunch expenses up to £10 per day will be reimbursed for each volunteer. Deadline to apply: Friday 26th July 2024 at 5pm https://ow.ly/GCtu50SwT8e

Just in case in you missed it, here is a snippet of our recent On Our Table: Artists’ Books talk. This talk served to spotlight materials from Stuart Hall Library and iniva’s archive, exploring the intersection of book, archive object, and artwork – commonly referred to as ‘artists books.’ Archivist and Engagement Producer Kaitlene Koranteng @justkaitlene along with Assistant Librarian Charlotte Mui @cmuins , guided us through the materials that challenge conventional notions of what defines a book, offering a glimpse into the artistic exploration of this unique medium. This video is but a few of their favourite items in the collection such as Shiraz Bayjoo’s visual interpretation of Treasure Island and anothermountainman’s celebration of the iconic red-white-and-blue bags ubiquitous in Hong Kong. We hope to see you again at our next On Our Table.