The Facts
Southbank Centre is presenting Ufuoma Essi as part of British Art Show 10: A Chorus of Strangers. Essi, born in London in 1995 and based in South East London, is a video artist and filmmaker whose work splices archival footage to bring suppressed histories to light and examine how memory is felt, preserved and distorted. Her 2021 film Bodies in Dissent presents bodies as vessels possessed by higher forces or connected to narratives beyond their immediate environments, with a voiceover relating the story of actress Nambi Kiyira overtaken by religious frenzy and a joyous fervour communicated through movement and dance. The work frames the body and its movements as a new form of archive, with history becoming an embodied experience and performance a means of self-actualisation and survival.
The Signal
Essi's inclusion in British Art Show 10 places her within a national survey that carries weight for curators tracking moving-image and archival practice in the UK. For collectors and institutions, the presentation reinforces her standing in a lineage of Black British film and performance-based work, where the body functions as both subject and document. The emphasis on suppressed histories and embodied memory aligns with a broader curatorial appetite for works that interrogate the archive rather than simply illustrate it.
- Artists: Ufuoma Essi
- People: Nambi Kiyira
- Museums: Southbank Centre
- Locations: London
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