Sutapa Biswas, Birdsong, 2004. 16mm re-telecined and mastered onto 4K, two-channel projection, colour, no sound, 7 min 7 sec. Installation view, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2021. Photo: Rob Harris. © Sutapa Biswas. All Rights Reserved. DACS 2025.
Book tickets
Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025
Marking forty years since The Thin Black Line (1985), this panel discussion responds to Connecting Thin Black Lines by bringing together artists and curators to reflect on the exhibition’s legacy and the evolving practices and solidarities it continues to inspire.
In dialogue with the current show’s emphasis on connection – across time, space, practice, and community – the conversation will explore how the “thin black lines” first drawn in 1985 have been redrawn, expanded, and reimagined over the past four decades. It will consider what it means to sustain radical artistic networks over time, and how practices of care, collectivity, and critique might shape the future of cultural work.
The panel will be chaired by Bolanle Tajudeen, alongside speakers Zoé Whitley, Meneesha Kellay, and Ariel Collier.
Click here to explore the full exhibition and event programme.
Marking forty years since The Thin Black Line (1985), this panel discussion responds to Connecting Thin Black Lines by bringing together artists and curators to reflect on the exhibition’s legacy and the evolving practices and solidarities it continues to inspire.
In dialogue with the current show’s emphasis on connection – across time, space, practice, and community – the conversation will explore how the “thin black lines” first drawn in 1985 have been redrawn, expanded, and reimagined over the past four decades. It will consider what it means to sustain radical artistic networks over time, and how practices of care, collectivity, and critique might shape the future of cultural work.
The panel will be chaired by Bolanle Tajudeen, alongside speakers Zoé Whitley, Meneesha Kellay, and Ariel Collier.
Click here to explore the full exhibition and event programme.
Bios
Marlene Smith (b. 1964) is an artist and curator, and one of the founding members of the BLK Art Group. Smith’s practice is concerned with the materiality of objects, both inherited and created, and their embodied perception. Through experimentation with their properties, biography becomes not a means of classification and stratification, but instead a similarly malleable object that becomes engaged, activated, and transformed through artistic practice.
Meneesha Kellay (she/her) is a curator working across art, architecture, design, and performance. Currently the Senior Curator, Contemporary at the V&A Museum, she supports emerging creative practice through commissioning artists and designers. Meneesha has experience leading major events on London’s cultural calendar, such as the Friday Late programme, London Design Festival at the V&A, and Open House London, reaching over a quarter of a million people. She is also developing a major South Asia focused exhibition opening in 2027. She is an advocate for shifting museum practice with an interest in the transformative potential of the arts. With extensive experience in broadening participation, she champions methodologies that foster inclusive cultural environments and democratise museum spaces. Meneesha is also co-curator of the British Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2023 which received a Special Mention Award.
Ariel Collier (she/they/we/our) is an accomplished international conceptual artist, writer, researcher and curator currently based in London. Collier’s work challenges alienation and estrangement, using multiple mediums (such as tufting, poetry and photography) and socially engaged practices to shift global understandings of black queer culture towards our inner worlds, reflections and interconnections.
Collier is the founder of Home Studio, a nomadic space dedicated to the promotion, empowerment and development of queer and trans global majority artists by hosting workshops, CRITS, making sessions and exhibitions.
Book tickets
07:00 pm
Wed, 27 Aug 2025
Cinema 1
Wednesday 27 August, 7pm
£15 full price / £12.50 concessions
(Includes a free exhibition ticket for the day of the event, accessed from a member of staff at the front desk.)
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Cinema 1
- Both our Cinemas have step free access from The Mall and are accessible by ramp
- We have 1 wheelchair allocated space with a seat for a companion
- All seats are hard back, have a crushed velvet feel and they do not recline
- These are our seat size dimensions: W 42 x D 45 x H 52
- Arm rest either side of the seat dimensions: L 27 x W 7 x H 20
for the following requirements:
- We have unassigned seating. If you require a specific seat, please reserve this in advance
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email
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