Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts

Join Maya Scarlette for a hands-on workshop exploring dancehall fashion, the art of self-styling and DIY culture! Centring fashion as both creative expression and cultural language, the workshop draws connections between dancehall aesthetics, making, and diasporic forms of self-styling and creativity.💅

Maya Scarlette is a London-based, self-taught fashion designer whose work explores creativity across multiple disciplines, including custom design, carnival costume, red carpets, music videos, and editorial styling. Her practice is rooted in craftsmanship and storytelling, bringing bold, expressive concepts to life through wearable art.

Bring a t-shirt or other clothing item to customise and leave with something that's entirely yours. ✨

🔊 Dancehall Riddim Queens: Bring Ya Ting to Bling with Maya Scarlette
🗓️ Wednesday 8 July 2026
🕰️ 5:30pm - 7:30pm
📍Stuart Hall Library, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU

Book your free ticket now: https://billetto.co.uk/e/dancehall-riddim-queens-bring-ya-ting-to-bling-tickets-1949453?utm_source=organiser&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_content=1

Dancehall Riddim Queens, a solo exhibition by Linett Kamala, is also on show at Stuart Hall Library until 31 July 2026

Dancehall Riddim Queens is supported by The Ampersand Foundation.

Curated by Beatriz Lobo with programme assistance by Vasita (Pleng) Jirathiyut

Graphic design by Jeffrey Choy with art direction by Charlotte Mui

Photography of Dancehall Riddim Queens by Pupat Chenaksara

It's Refugee Week 🌸

To mark this year's theme of Courage, we've compiled a reading list of books and zines from the Stuart Hall Library collection that hold the stories and journeys of refugees and asylum seekers, ask what it means to belong, and show how courage and creativity have always shaped our shared culture.

From T. J. Demos on documentary and displacement, to Sara Ahmed on the politics of emotion, to community-led newspapers and living oral histories — each title carries voices that deserve to be heard.

Because every person, wherever they are from, deserves love, respect, and dignity. 🤍

Swipe to see some of the highlighted books, and come visit us at the Stuart Hall Library to read more.
The Stuart Hall Library is open Tuesdays to Fridays, 10 am to 5 pm. 📚

The cover illustration is of a protea, a South African flower that symbolises courage, transformation and diversity.

✏️ Reading list illustrated and compiled by Charlotte Mui

What does it mean to belong, and what happens when the art classroom doesn't reflect who you are? 📚

Our previous Library volunteer, Imrana Khanum, has spent 28 years teaching Art in secondary schools. In her blog post, she writes about belonging, identity, and the urgent need for a more inclusive art curriculum.

Drawing on the 2024 Visualise report, which found that just 2.3% of artists referenced in GCSE Art exam papers are from Black or South Asian backgrounds, Imrana asks what it costs young people to never see themselves in the work they study.

Read the full piece, including her recommended reading list and resources for art teachers:

https://iniva.org/addressing-belonging-identity-and-inclusion-in-art-education-by-imrana-khanum/

Two weeks left to apply!

We are thrilled to be working with Siddhartha Mitter and Dr. Margarita Lila Rosa, two distinguished thinkers and art writers, who will serve on the selection committee for our International Open Call for writers.

In addition to selecting the shortlisted applicants, they will each provide personalised feedback to the first ten shortlisted writers they choose—offering valuable insights and guidance to emerging voices in the field.

Writers, don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity to be commissioned for your writing and gain valuable feedback!

Siddhartha Mitter is a writer on art, art practices and their social and conceptual stakes, based in New York City and working locally and internationally. Siddhartha is a member of the late Koyo Kouoh's curatorial team for the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, "In Minor Keys" (Biennale Arte 2026), and editor-in-chief of the exhibition catalogue.

Margarita Lila Rosa is a historian and arts & culture critic specialising in Afro-Latin American and African American history and contemporary art. Dr. Rosa’s practice has been written about in Ebony, Refinery 29, Hyperallergic, and Teen Vogue, among others. She won the 2024 Letitia Woods Article of the Year Award from the Association of Black Women Historians, for her article in the Journal of African American History. Rosa was a 2024 recipient of the Studio Museum in Harlem Arts Leadership Praxis Fellowship. Dr. Rosa’s historical academic scholarship has also been published in the Caribbean Quarterly, the Journal of African American History, and Slavery & Abolition, among others. Her art criticism has been published in The Museum of Modern Art Magazine, the Brooklyn Rail, i-D, Hyperallergic, and more.

The Message Is in the Pattern: Writers Open Call
▪️4 writers will be selected
▪️£600 fee per writer
▪️500 – 1,000 words
▪️Respond to the newly commissioned works by Anya Paintsil, Rajyashri Goody and Rose Afefé
🗓 Deadline: 29 June, 10:00 BST

Full details and how to apply: https://iniva.org/programme/events/writers-open-call/

The Message Is in the Pattern is supported by the British Council

Curated by Beatriz Lobo with programme support by Vasita (Pleng) Jirathiyut

Graphic design by Jeffrey Choy with art direction by Charlotte Mui

📢 Last chance to join our Reading & Listening Session with Becca Dudley and Linett Kamala!

Facilitated by Becca Dudley and Linett Kamala, this session explores Linett's work and archive with a particular focus on colourism, beauty standards, body politics, and women's representation within dancehall culture. 🤩

Don't miss this opportunity to take a guided deep dive into some of the writings from Jamaican scholars who specialise in dancehall culture, listen to music from the era as we reflect on the complex intersections of desirability, sexuality, race and visibility across dancehall and broader visual culture, as well as consider the present-day impact of women at the fore of this global music phenomenon.

Book your free ticket now!
https://billetto.co.uk/e/dancehall-riddim-queens-reading-listening-session-tickets-1942532?utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_content=1&utm_medium=share&utm_source=organiser

🔊 Dancehall Riddim Queens: Reading & Listening Session with Becca Dudley and Linett Kamala
🗓️ Wednesday 24 June 2026
🕰️ 5:30pm - 7:30pm
📍 Stuart Hall Library, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU

Dancehall Riddim Queens, a solo exhibition by Linett Kamala is on view at Stuart Hall Library until 31 July 2026. ✨

Dancehall Riddim Queens is supported by The Ampersand Foundation.

Curated by Beatriz Lobo with programme assistance by Vasita (Pleng) Jirathiyut.

Graphic design by Jeffrey Choy with art direction by Charlotte Mui.

Photography of Dancehall Riddim Queens and Linett Kamala by Pupat Chenaksara.

Photography of Becca Dudley by Sofi Adams.

Join Maya Scarlette for a hands-on workshop exploring dancehall fashion, the art of self-styling and DIY culture! Centring fashion as both creative expression and cultural language, the workshop draws connections between dancehall aesthetics, making, and diasporic forms of self-styling and creativity. ✨

Maya Scarlette is a London-based, self-taught fashion designer whose work explores creativity across multiple disciplines, including custom design, carnival costume, red carpets, music videos, and editorial styling. Her practice is rooted in craftsmanship and storytelling, bringing bold, expressive concepts to life through wearable art. 💅

Bring a t-shirt or other clothing item to customise and leave with something that's entirely yours. 👕

✨Dancehall Riddim Queens: Bring Ya Ting to Bling with Maya Scarlette✨
🗓️ Wednesday 8 July 2026
🕰️ 5:30pm - 7:30pm
📍Stuart Hall Library, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU

Book your free ticket now!
🔗 https://billetto.co.uk/e/dancehall-riddim-queens-bring-ya-ting-to-bling-tickets-1949453?utm_source=organiser&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_content=1

Dancehall Riddim Queens, a solo exhibition by Linett Kamala, is also on show at Stuart Hall Library until 31 July 2026

Dancehall Riddim Queens is supported by The Ampersand Foundation.
Curated by Beatriz Lobo with programme assistance by Vasita (Pleng) Jirathiyut
Graphic design by Jeffrey Choy with art direction by Charlotte Mui

📸 Photography of Dancehall Riddim Queens by Pupat Chenaksara
📸 Photograph of Maya Scarlette provided by Maya Scarlette.

Muslim women artists have always been inventing the future. This reading list by library volunteer Surah ya Salaam refuses the past-making version of them that exists in the Euro-American imagination, and goes looking for the obscure, the alive, and the generative. The blog post features works on Mona Hatoum, Laylah Ali, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Nawaal El Saadawi, Shirazeh Houshiary and Yasmin Yaqub.

Read 'Muslim women thinking further than the end of the world: A Reading List by Surah ya Salaam' now on iniva's website:
https://iniva.org/muslim-women-thinking-further-than-the-end-of-the-world-a-reading-list-by-surah-ya-salaam/

📢 NEW DATE & VENUE ANNOUNCED!

Join us at 'Revisiting Club Mix', a night of remixing, collective practices, and radical creativity across visual art and sound system culture with Keith Piper, Gary Stewart and Daniel Oduntan! 🔊

In March 1999, Keith Piper took art out of the gallery and into the club. Club Mix toured venues across London, Birmingham and Nottingham — fusing moving image, music and live performance and invited new ways of thinking about how art circulates, is experienced, and is made collaboratively.

Chaired by Daniel Oduntan, this event features a showcase of moving image materials used in the original Club Mix presentation and an in-conversation with Keith Piper and Gary Stewart, followed by a live sound session with Gary Stewart.

✨ Revisiting Club Mix ✨
🗓️ Tuesday 23 June 2026
🕰️ 7pm - 10pm
📍Club Silly
18 Valencia Place, Lambeth, London SW9 8EP
🎟️ Tickets are free! Book yours now via the link in bio 🔗

This event is part of the Visualising Contemporary Art Histories project, supported by the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery.

Here's a round up of the events happening & opportunities closing this month at iniva! 😍

💓 Revisiting Club Mix, an In-Conversation with Keith Piper and Gary Stewart, chaired by Daniel Oduntan at Bureau of Silly Ideas on 23 June

💓 Dancehall Riddim Queens: Reading & Listening Session with Becca Dudley and Linett Kamala at the Stuart Hall Library on 24 June

💓 Moving Image Collections Showcase with our Archivist Kaitlene Koranteng at the Stuart Hall Library on 27 June

💓 Dancehall Riddim Queens, a solo exhibition by Linett Kamala is showing at Stuart Hall Library until 31 July

💓 The Message Is in the Pattern: A Post-National Digital Pavilion – International Writers Open Call closes on 29 June

💓 You can also view the full digital artworks by Anya Paintsil, Rajyashri Goody and Rose Afefé at iniva.org

Check out our website www.iniva.org for more information about these very exciting events and stay tuned for more upcoming programmes! ✨

Photography by Pupat Chenaksara