20/20: Reflections - Holly Graham

Chelsea Space and the Decolonising Arts Institute at UAL collaborate once more on 20/20:Reflections, a summer evening programme offering the opportunity to hear directly from some of the second 20/20 cohort of artists about their residencies in national collections.

20/20 artist Holly Graham and artist-curator Wanja Kimani will lead a roundtable discussion exploring potentials and challenges of decolonial and reparative justice work within arts and heritage collections. Taking Holly's 20/20 commission as a starting point, and drawing on collective learnings in working with materials that speak to institutional histories of enslavement, attendees will be invited to think through possibilities and limitations presented by such work.

Following the success of our earlier collaborative series of talks with the first cohort of artists last summer, 20/20Reflections will also feature the first exhibition of the 20/20 Print Portfolio. Alongside the full series of prints created by each of the 20 artists who have participated in the 20/20 project, the exhibition will also include a series of artist films developed as part of the programme.

Event Timings

6.30pm: Arrival (free refreshments provided)

6.45pm: Roundtable discussion, led by Wanja Kimani and Holly Graham, to include contributors from Global Threads

7.30pm: Q&A

8.00pm: Event ends

Biographies

Holly Graham is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores how memory and narrative shape collective histories and identities. Rooted in a commitment to responsible storytelling, her practice engages with recording mechanisms - such as documents, evidence, and editorial processes - to amplify quiet, overlooked histories. She often works site-specifically and in dialogue with archives and museum collections, drawing on her lived experience as a Black British individual of African and Caribbean diasporas to examine historical constructions of race and their contemporary echoes.

Working across audio, text, moving and still image, and sculptural forms, her work frequently employs print-based motifs - duplication, trace, and material degradation - to reflect the fragmentary and mutable nature of memory and resistant narratives.

Recent projects include commissions with: Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2025); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2025); and TACO!, London (2021-25). Holly is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London; and is Co-Founder of Cypher BILLBOARD, London. She was awarded a Sainsbury Scholarship at the British School at Rome for 2023, and will be commencing a PhD with University of Westminster in September 2025.

Wanja Kimani is a visual artist, writer, and curator. In her most recent role as Associate Curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum, she co-curated Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition and was co-editor of the accompanying exhibition catalogue.

Wanja has collaborated on numerous international exhibitions with artists, primarily from East Africa, showcasing work in diverse spaces—from artist-run collectives to galleries and major art fairs.

Her visual practice explores the evolving relationship between the body and the land, reflecting themes of connection and disconnection over time. Working with natural dyes and found materials, she embraces experimentation and playfulness in her process. In 2022, she was one of the artists representing Kenya at the 59th Venice Biennale.

An alumna of Independent Curators International (Addis Ababa, 2014), Wanja was also part of the Emerging Curators Group 2024 (British Art Network and Tate). She has published essays on contemporary art and artists in East Africa and was awarded a Literature Matters Award from the Royal Society of Literature in 2023. She is currently pursuing a practice-led PhD in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London