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 Singh Burman, Jennifer Comrie, Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan, Marlene Smith and Maud Sulter – will be shown together for the first time. 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.  

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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.

24 June – 7 September 2025

Tuesday to Sunday: 12 – 9pm 
12 – 1pm: Pay what you can 
Tickets are available for 1 hour slots 

Tickets for exhibition and events programme are currently only available for ICA Members and Patrons. General tickets on sale Tuesday 27 May 2025. 

All ICA Members go free 
Members+ and Patrons go free, plus guest

Ticket prices

Full Price
£8.75 (inc. £1.25 donation)*
£7.50 (without donation)

Concessions (18 to 24-year-olds, disabled, pensioners, students)
£5.50 (inc. £0.50 donation)*
£5.00 (without donation)

Concessions (Art Fund, Disabled Companion, Under 18s, Visitors with Income Support)
Free

*There are no booking fees for this exhibition. However, an optional donation will help support the ICA’s programme. See Donations and Gift Aid for more information.

Pay what you can

Pay what you can for your exhibition ticket between 12 – 1pm every day

The price for your ticket should never be a barrier to come and see our exhibitions, and so we've included a pre-lunch hour slot for you to come and visit Connecting Thin Black Lines 1995 – 2025 on any day of your choosing (even the weekend). Pay what you can from £3 online when you pre-book, or alternatively visit on the day to pay whatever you can at our admissions desk (subject to availability, timed entry has limited capacity).

Booking online? Simply pick the price you can pay (between £3 and the full exhibition price). See you there!

Donation and Gift Aid

Our tickets have two prices – one for a ticket with a donation, and one for a ticket without.

A price which includes an additional donation of at least 10% (of original price) allows us to claim Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer. With Gift Aid, the ICA can treat the whole value of the ticket as a donation and claim 25p in every £1 in tax.

To make your ticket donation Gift Aid eligible, please complete a Gift Aid declaration when you reach the checkout. You can still make this declaration even if you select ‘I do not want to donate’ for the extra online donation. (However, if you’re feeling generous, click ‘I want to donate’ to add an extra amount on top of your original ticket donation).

All donations are hugely appreciated and will go toward supporting the ICA’s radical programme.

Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025: Exhibition Preview
Mon 23 June, 7:30 - 9:30pm




Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025 is a multi-vocal, multi-disciplinary project bringing together artists across a range of practices beyond the exhibition.

Tao Lashley-Burnley: ICA Instagram takeover 
24 June – 7 September

Pratibha Parmar: Memory Pictures, Flesh & Paper, Khush + Q&A
Wed 2 Jul, 7pm

Sutapa Biswas: Kali & Lumen + Q&A
Wed 9 Jul, 7pm

Vex’d Bermoothes: An Evening with Four Bermuda Poets + Q&A
Tue 15 Jul, 7pm

Helen Cammock: There’s a Hole in the Sky Parts I & II + Performance 
Fri 16 Jul, 7pm

Music and Silence (Live Performance): Magda Stawarska with Zeynep Özsuca 
Thu 24 Jul, 7pm

Signals: Trevor Mathison, Gary Stewart & Tansy Spinks 
Sun 27 Jul, 1pm

Pratibha Parmar: Alice Walker – Beauty in Truth + Q&A 
Wed 6 Aug, 7pm

If you look very closely the poem will paint itself – Andra Simons responds 
Sun 10 Aug, 4pm

Helen Cammock: Changing Room, They Call It Idlewild + Q&A 
Wed 13 Aug, 7pm

Tracing The Thin Black Line: Rommi Smith with Christella Litras 
Tue 19 Aug, 7pm

Amber Akaunu: Dear Othermother + Q&A 
Wed 20 Aug, 7pm

Connecting Thin Black Lines: 1985, 2025 and Beyond Panel Discussion 
Wed 27 Aug, 7pm

Gossip Keepers: Turtlemen + Q&A Andra Simmons 
Thu 28 Aug, 7pm

Helen Cammock: Che si può fare
Sat 30 Aug, 1pm

Pratibha Parmar: Emergence, Sari Red, A Place of Rage + Panel Discussion 
Wed 3 Sep, 7pm