British Art Show 10 names Ekow Eshun as curator for A Chorus of Strangers
The next edition of the British Art Show will open in Coventry this autumn with a roster of 30 artists and a curatorial framework built around memory, identity, and the environment. Titled A Chorus of Strangers, British Art Show 10 is curated by Ekow Eshun and will travel across five UK cities through June 2028.
The exhibition opens on October 2, 2026, at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Mead Gallery, and Coventry University, where it runs through January 10, 2027. It then moves to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield, and finally Newcastle and Gateshead, with stops at a network of museums, galleries, and artist-led spaces in each city.
Eshun, who curated In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in 2022 and previously led the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, has organized the show around three themes. Moments of Being, inspired by Virginia Woolf, focuses on dreams, memory, and the subconscious. Ways of Living, shaped by the ideas of Stuart Hall, examines how politics and history inform culture and identity. States of Nature, drawing on Timothy Morton, turns toward ecological awareness and the human relationship to the environment.
Among the artists selected are Alex Margo Arden, Liz Johnson Artur, Alvaro Barrington, Shiraz Bayjoo, Lubna Chowdhary, Shawanda Corbett, Jesse Darling, Lindsey Mendick, and Osman Yousefzada. The roster prompted debate online, with some viewers praising the selection and others asking why artists including Barbara Walker, Claudette Johnson, and Phoebe Boswell were not included.
First launched in 1979 and staged every five years, the British Art Show has long functioned as a barometer for contemporary art in the UK. Produced by Hayward Gallery Touring, part of the Southbank Centre, the 10th edition arrives at a moment when questions of belonging, collective memory, and climate feel especially charged — and the exhibition’s title suggests Eshun intends to meet that tension head-on.
