EMPIRE LINES uncovers the unexpected, often two-way, flows of empires through art. Interdisciplinary thinkers use individual artworks as artefacts of imperial exchange, revealing... more
Artist and sculptor Permindar Kaur moves between the Black British Arts Movement, the Young British Artists (YBAs), and Barcelona in... more
Curator Tessa Giblin deconstructs El Anatsui’s monumental, sculptural textiles, unravelling the ties that still bind post-colonial Ghana, Nigeria, and Scotland... more
Artist Ibrahim Mahama ‘time travels’ between British colonial and independent Ghana, tracing railway lines across African and European countries in... more
Artist and academic Sequoia Danielle Barnes redresses the ugly side of kitsch and ‘cute’ toy cultures, telling histories of trickster... more
Contemporary artist Beatriz Milhazes collages arabesques from Baroque Portugal and Brazil’s many indigenous communities, tracing religious and natural patterns in... more
Artist Hanna Tuulikki connects plantation landscapes in Finland, Scotland, and across the South West of England, making kin across species... more
Curator Ekow Eshun reframes the Black figure in historic and contemporary art, surveying its presences, absences, and representations in Western/European... more
Contemporary and performance artist Paul Maheke moves between France, Congo, and Canada, exploring the ‘archive of their body’ through drawing... more
In this special episode, EMPIRE LINES returns to Ingrid Pollard’s 2022 exhibition, Carbon Slowly Turning, the first major survey of... more
Artist LR (Lisa) Vandy shows EMPIRE LINES the ropes in a studio visit to Chatham’s Royal Navy Dockyard in Kent,... more
Filmmaker Saodat Ismailova traces stories of spirituality, dissent, and environmental extraction around the Aral Sea from post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Central... more
Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, and Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tamsin Hong of the Serpentine Galleries, coat London’s historic statues... more
Artist Zineb Sedira records cultural and postcolonial connections between Algeria, France, Italy, and the UK from the 1960s, featuring films,... more
Artist and archivist Pio Abad draws out lines between Oxford, the Americas, and the Philippines, making personal connections with historic... more
Curators Ros Carter and Sofie Krogh Christensen chart Pia Arke’s photo-activism across the Arctic region, from a pinhole view to... more
Art historian and Professor Griselda Pollock traces the memories of contemporary artist women like Sutapa Biswas, one of her students... more
Artist and curator Lubaina Himid unravels entangled histories of transatlantic slavery and textile production, across continents, and Britain’s museum collections,... more
Decolonial thinker Professor Paul Gilroy joins EMPIRE LINES live in Plymouth, to chart thirty years since the publication of The... more
Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey joins EMPIRE LINES live at the Eden Project in Cornwall, to discuss Afrogallonism, uplifting communities with... more
Artist - and winner of Artes Mundi 10 - Taloi Havini mines connections between extractive industries in the Pacific Islands,... more
Art historian and Professor Griselda Pollock traces the memories of contemporary artist women like Sutapa Biswas, one of her students in the... more