20/20 Futures

The UAL 20/20 programme is a bold three-year initiative launched by UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute in November 2021. It pairs 20 emerging or mid-career artists of colour with 20 UK public collections, commissioning new works for permanent acquisition. This work answers the widely recognised need for change across arts and culture, addressing the social inequities and racial injustices brought into sharper focus during the COVID-19 pandemic and the renewed visibility of Black Lives Matter. I worked in conjunction with Wolverhampton Art Gallery where I found inspiration from the gallery's 19th and 20th century landscapes such as Edwin Butler Bayliss, Arthur Lockwood, and Harry N. Eccleston, all of whom romanticised the Industrial Revolution but omit its human cost. More information about the background to the project can be found on my website. From this research emerged three new artworks: an artist film, a sculptural piece, and a series of photopolymer intaglio monoprints developed from the AI-generated images. To create these images I partnered with software engineers to build a bespoke database of public-domain scans of gallery material plus ethically sourced images of mid-20th-century empire workers; these were tagged and used to train a machine-learning model, generating new visuals from prompts drawn from his research and local stories. These artworks have been on display at a solo show at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and more recently are part of a group exhibition which is currently open at the London College of Fashion (Stratford) until 17 January 2026. I had the privilege on the 15th November, to share my work and journey at the UAL 20/20: Futures Symposium, hosted by the University of the Arts London (UAL) and chaired by Professor Susan Pui San Lok, Director of UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute. The event brought together the second cohort of artists in the 20/20 programme. A particular highlight was the panel entitled “Artists & Collections”, introduced by producer Martine Rouleau (20/20). In this session, I joined fellow artists Madi Acharya‑Baskerville (associated with The Lightbox), Jessica Ashman (Bristol Museum & Art Gallery) and Holly Graham (Manchester Art Gallery). Together they explored how artists and institutions can rethink what gets collected, displayed and remembered. I wish to express my gratitude for the inspiring exchange of ideas. These commissions were made possible thanks to funding from the Freelands Foundation and Arts Council England , via the UAL 20/20 programme.