About

We are a group of artists, educators, curators and scholars that have supported the International Institute of Visual Arts (Iniva) at different times in different ways since its inception in 1994. We have organised a number of informal meetings this year in order to articulate our serious concern at Iniva’s longstanding institutional crisis.

The recent passing of Stuart Hall, the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Iniva and the recent Arts Council of England cut to Iniva’s National Portfolio Organisation funding for 2015 to 2018 has had the salutary effect of focusing public attention upon Iniva’s reputational decline.

The organisational collapse of the International Institute of Visual Arts has now become a matter of national and international scrutiny. The future of Iniva can therefore no longer be debated behind closed doors by its director, its board and invited guests.

The critical and creative vision of this once pioneering institution must be debated in public by all those interested in shaping its present and future.

What should the vision of Iniva be? What role should Iniva play in London, in Britain, and beyond these shores? What should its priorities be? How should the discourse of internationalism that informed its founding moment be carried forward? How should it maintain its commitment to its critical legacies while renewing its engagement with the urgencies of the present? How should it organise itself? How can Iniva reform itself so that it actively supports, nurtures and champions new cultural, artistic and critical voices?

We invite all those interested in discussing these issues and many other important questions to this group in order to shape a healthy, alternative vision of Iniva as it moves into the 21st Century.

Yours sincerely,

Larry Achiampong

Barby Asante

Sonia Boyce

David Dibosa

Kodwo Eshun

Roshini Kempadoo

Andrea Phillips

Anjalika Sagar

Grant Watson