‘What was crucial to me upon becoming director was putting the artists and the audiences at the heart of everything,’ says Bengi Ünsal, who took the reins of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 2022. ‘I wanted to make the space multi-arts again, and put contemporary culture at the heart of it.’
Ünsal built a career in music programming in her native Turkey before heading to London in 2016. Prior to moving to the ICA, she was the head of contemporary music at Southbank Centre, where she was already championing a multidisciplinary approach to the cultural sphere. In her ICA role, she oversees a programme that encompasses cinema, visual arts, talks and events, but which steps away from the traditional format. Supporting creatives is key, with recent initiatives including an investment in a custom-designed D&B Soundscape system, which this month will see artists use the space for live performances in a series of ‘In the Round’ gigs.
‘I went for this job in the first place because I observed that artists, especially younger and emerging ones, didn’t want to define themselves with art forms anymore,’ says Ünsal. ‘The system is changing, and the way that artists are presenting themselves is changing, too. It’s made people more comfortable with sharing their interdisciplinary forms. We do have defined areas here, but I also like them to merge and become really multi-arts.’ It’s an agenda that is reflected in the space’s ambitious programming, with an eclectic curation for autumn that encompassed a retrospective on German filmmaker Angela Schanelec and a new phase of the organisation’s young artists programme, ICA Creatives x Diasporas Now. In the lower gallery, a new commission by British artist Tanoa Sasraku considers the far-reaching implications of the oil industry in her new institutional exhibition, on until 11 January.
‘The ICA is very much the risk taker, and there are not many platforms at the moment that are willing to do that,’ says Ünsal. ‘We like to do the first UK shows of people coming up, and that’s important to us. Tanoa is asking questions and that is something we value and want to support, creating a safe space for voices to be heard.’
This article appears in the November 2025 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 9 October. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
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