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. Works by all of the original artists – Brenda Agard, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Chila Kumari Burman, Jennifer Comrie, Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan, Marlene Smith and Maud Sulter – will be shown together for the first time since 1985.

Looking forward as much as back, the exhibition features new commissions as well as artworks made over the past four decades. Extending beyond the gallery space, a rich programme of film screenings, talks, music and live performances brings to life Himid’s original ambition for a multi-disciplinary Black arts festival across the ICA’s exhibition, cinema and live spaces.

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.

Rather than a restaging or retrospective, this exhibition looks forward as much as it does back, with works made in the past four decades including two new commissions by Burman and Smith. In her signature style, Burman will light up the ICA’s Concourse with new neon works and Smith’s sculpture, inspired by a photograph from her late parents’ family album, takes centre stage in the Lower Gallery. The earliest work in the exhibition, Sonia Boyce’s Rice n Peas (1982) acknowledges that The Thin Black Line was not the sudden genesis of these artists’ practices, but a coalescence formed from continuous work throughout the early 80s. Artworks created in the years following the exhibition include Jennifer Comrie’s Coming to Terms Through Conflict (1987) and Maud Sulter’s Polyhymnia (1989). More recent contributions include Threads (2024) a hanging crochet sculpture by Veronica Ryan and Sutapa Biswas’s photographs from her Lumen series (2021).

The exhibition highlights the interconnected and wide-ranging roles that The Thin Black Line artists have been playing in art and exhibition making, and the meaningful paths crossed between these artists over the course of the last 40 years. This is reflected in key loans from both the Arts Council Collection – such as Johnson’s Trilogy series depicting Black female sitters including Agard and Pollard – and from Himid’s personal collection, which features works by Boyce, Pollard, Sulter, and Himid herself.

Connecting Thin Black Lines features an archival display of professional and personal documents from the original 1985 show, including photographs and never-before-seen correspondence revealing the quotidian work and care behind this historic exhibition.

To mark the exhibition, the ICA will republish the original 1985 exhibition guide accompanied by a companion publication with contributions from participating artists. Long out of print, the original publication is a vital resource for curators and historians. The new edition will expand access to an important primary source while also providing space for reflection today.

ica.art