Institute of Contemporary Arts – Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025

Advance Booking Required

Exhibition Dates: 24 June – 7 September 2025.

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.