Arts at SXSW London
See our programme for 2025 and watch this space for 2026 arts programme
‘Beautiful Collisions,’ Curated by Beth Greenacre
Immersive exhibition, ‘Beautiful Collisions,’ explores the vital role of Caribbean diaspora artists in London’s cultural scene. With a mix of visual arts, community and music, the exhibition will centre on work by Alberta Whittle, Alvaro Barrington and his music project Emelda’s Junction in collaboration with Errol and Alex Rita’s Touching Bass, Denzil Forrester, Tavares Strachan & Runkus, and Zinzi Minott.
Beautiful Collisions takes place at Christchurch Spitalfields
Left: Denzil Forrester, Jah Guide Shaka, 2023. Oil on canvas, 183 x 153cm (72 x 60 1/4in). Copyright Denzil Forrester. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Todd-White Art Photography.
Denzil Forrester
At the centre of the exhibition are the vibrant paintings of Denzil Forrester, capturing the dynamic energy and sense of community of East London’s reggae and dub nightclub scene during the 1980s and 90s.
Tavares Strachan & Runkus
Forrester’s work will be complemented by contributions from renowned artist Tavares Strachan, subject of a recent Hayward Gallery exhibition, and Jamaican musician Runkus. Throughout the week, Strachan is curating a unique B.A.S.E.C (Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center) store and cafe, serving Caribbean inspired food and drinks alongside a library and other items, soon to be announced.
Zinzi Minott
Zinzi Minott will present this year’s iteration of Fi Dem, an annual multimedia project made on the anniversary of the docking of Empire Windrush.
Alberta Whittle
Alberta Whittle presents a sculptural installation that meditates on the ongoing erasure of Black bodies, voices and narratives as well as experiences of Black womxn.
Alvaro Barrington
Alvaro Barrington will present new works alongside Emelda's Junction – a series of music performances and events programmed by Barrington’s studio – in a special SXSW London collaboration with Errol and Alex Rita's Touching Bass.
LDN LAB
LDN LAB will explore one of the most exciting crossroads in contemporary culture, the transformative place where the arts and technology meet. This collection of artworks explore past, present and future frontiers in the arts, technology and physical space, featuring works by Andy Warhol, Beeple, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, and contributions by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Glitch Collective.
LDN LAB is curated by Alex Poots and produced by North Star Studio.
LDN LAB is presented in Protein Studios.
Left: Tree of Knowledge © Beeple Studios
Andy Warhol
‘The pop idea was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were all trying to do it all. We all wanted to branch out into every creative thing we could.’– Andy Warhol
An installation featuring a series of Warhol films, many of which appeared in the artist’s landmark immersive club show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, will be installed under the supervision of Patrick Moore, by kind permission of The Andy Warhol Museum.
Beeple
A SXSW London exclusive and UK first - Beeple’s new generative sculpture, The Tree of Knowledge, explores themes of agency, nature and sustainability in the context of technology. Beeple is known for his pioneering digital art and NFTs produced outside the confines of traditional art.
Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst
AI art and music innovators present their vision for collaborative artmaking in the age of AI, in collaboration with Serpentine Arts Technologies.
Plus contributions by Artistic Director of Serpentine and art world polymath Hans Ulrich Obrist and Glitch Collective.
Damien Roach’s ‘Grounding’
Damien Roach’s ‘Grounding’ zooms in on the tradition of landscape imagery though the lens of cutting-edge Generative AI and quantum physics. This immersive audiovisual installation explores the transient, fleeting, and ever-changing nature of land, matter, and the environment via the equally unstable ecology of the networked digital image. In its embrace of the constant motion and change observed across both the vastness of deep time and the microscopic scales of emergent quantum phenomena, Grounding’s never-repeating constellation of image and sound actively encourages an engagement with non-linear, multiperspectival, non-anthropocentric ways of seeing. Borrowing the algorithmic eye of generative media, Grounding points toward an existentially vital emancipation from human-scaled forms of relation with time, matter, the Earth, and other lifeforms in the era of climate crisis and widespread sociopolitical uncertainty.
Grounding is hosted in The Truman Brewery.
Beth Greenacre
Bringing over 20 years of art market experience, Beth Greenacre is an experienced and trusted curator, advisor and consultant and Arts Advisor to SXSW London. Soon after graduating from The Courtauld Institute of Art, Beth became the curator of the David Bowie collection. Amongst other roles, she the curator and director of the Sunderland Collection Art Programme.
Alex Poots
An arts and cultural leader, and Creative Advisor to SXSW London, Alex currently serves as the Founding Artistic Director of The Shed, the first purpose-built arts centre to open in New York City for more than 50 years. Poots is also the Director of North Star Studio, a new creative production house that presents its first works at SXSW London 2025.
