Ekow Eshun’s British Art Show, set to travel around the country, celebrates different ways of being

The tenth British Art Show has opened in Coventry (where it's on until 10 January 2027), celebrating what’s exciting about art made by artists born or based in the UK now, with an eye on the future. Curated by writer, curator and Wallpaper* contributing editor Ekow Eshun, the exhibition features 37 artists, showcased in three literature-inspired sections around the city centre.

Titled ‘British Art Show 10: A Chorus of Strangers’, the exhibition ‘asks questions about what happens when we see from several different positions all together, at once', says Eshun at its opening. 'Perhaps what we see and hear is a set of voices in attunement, sometimes even in disagreement, but a chorus nevertheless speaks on several different levels at the same time.'

Devised to be accessible, free of charge and to travel around the country (after its stint in Coventry, it will tour until June 2028), the exhibition is divided into three strands, each inspired by a different figure. 'Moments of Being' is inspired by literary giant Virginia Woolf; 'Ways of Living', by thinker and theorist Stuart Hall; and 'States of', by ecological philosopher Timothy Morton. On show are the works of both emerging artists and contemporary superstars alike.

‘I didn't start with the texts – the process of thinking about a show starts with the artists', says Eshun. 'But there's a research process that is just about assembling ideas, and then that starts to spill out into thinking about who else has been in this vein. I wanted to put the artist in relation to a wider body of thinking which has always been there.’

Walking into the Mead Gallery at Coventry’s Warwick Arts Centre, we enter a section of ‘Moments of Being’ – described as the moments when the cotton wool comes off life – and see a huge work painted on fabric by Emma Talbot with a fabric sculpture of a fantasy equine figure. The frieze-like work contains philosophical or empathetic phrases alongside an episodic series of vignettes.

The rooms in this venue are filled with painting and sculpture by contemporary greats, such as Mohammed Sami, Louise Giovanelli, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, as well as the less well-known Matthew Krishnau, 2025 Turner Prize-winner Nenea Kalu, and late figurative painter Alastair MacKinven. There’s also a series of paintings on fabric by Nengi Okumu.

There is a sense of comfort and light in these works by a group of artists that is truly diverse, including in what they choose to represent, from the scars of war to gender and family.

Giovanelli’s painting of a sparkling curtain is set alongside her ecstatic Maenad, (2024), named after the cannibalistic ancient female mythical being. Krishnau’s paintings tell a story of friendship through tiny figures in epic landscapes. Ceramics by Shawanda Corbett and Rae-Yen Song represent this popular medium, executed in completely different ways.

‘“A Chorus for Strangers” unites so many works about coming together,' Eshun says. 'For example, Alex Margo Arden's account, Julianknxx’s film, Joy Gerard's paintings of crowds surging. There are so many works that hopefully articulate something on a few different registers at the same time. Those are the works I'm drawn to.’

These works, housed at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, represent protest, catharsis and healing and the collapse of industry. Together, Julianknxx’s beautiful film Shifting | Spirit | Time, 2025, a three-channel work of a choral performance of a single word, ‘wai’, Gerrard’s black-and-white paintings of crowds surging in protest around the world, and Arden’s bound workers represent the shifts in industry that Britain still reels from. Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings’ large-scale fresco The Reconstruction, 2026, features a portrait of Quinlan’s grandmother and mother in a reimagined, queered version of a traditional family. Alvaro Barrington’s roller blinds set against a wallpaper of questionable online posts raises questions about expression and representation.

Now is a great time to be working with artists in Britain – so many are based here, making excellent work, with the support networks among them leading to a wonderful scene. Artists such as Lindsey Mendick, Jack O’Brien, Dala Nesser, Precious Okoyomon and Osman Yousefzada, all included in the show, demonstrate this.

‘I'm always trying to think about patterns that start to form and after a while, it doesn't become about an origin point and a line, it becomes a lattice and I have that in my head the whole time. I ended up in places with some artists that I hadn't anticipated before,’ Eshun says of the process of curation.

‘In my most optimistic version of these things, I like to think that an exhibition itself is a small utopia where anything is possible. I wanted to see if we could create a version of that within the walls of these exhibition spaces.’

I ask Eshun about his storied work on identity, in relation to a show about art in Britain at this time. ‘Let's say the show is as much about being as it is about Britain,’ he says.

‘British Art Show 10’ is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition, launched in Coventry, where it shows until 10 January 2027, before touring to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle Gateshead. For all dates, see southbankcentre.co.uk