Iniva (which was formerly written as inIVA) is the Institute of International Visual Art, a visual arts organisation based in London that collaborates with contemporary artists, curators and writers. Iniva runs the Stuart Hall Library, and is based in Pimlico, on the campus of

Chelsea College of Arts Chelsea College of Arts is a Colleges of the University of the Arts London, constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. It offers further education, further and higher educ ...

Exhibitions

Over the course of its existence, Iniva has hosted and/or produced major solo exhibitions by significant British and international artists, including sculptor

Hew Locke Hew Donald Joseph Locke (born 13 October 1959) is a British sculpture, sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000, he won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists, Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Awar ...

("Kingdom of the Blind", in 2008), filmmaker Zineb Sedira ("Currents of Time" in 2009), Donald Rodney ("In Retrospect", in 2008), Keith Piper ('Relocating the Remains' in 1997 and 'Unearthing the Banker's Bones' in 2016),

Yinka Shonibare Yinka Shonibare (born 9 August 1962), is a British artist living in the United Kingdom. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is the bright ...

('Diary of a Victorian Dandy' in 1998) and Guyanese painter

Aubrey Williams Aubrey Williams (8 May 1926 – 27 April 1990) was a Guyanese artist. He was best known for his large, oil-on-canvas paintings, which combine elements of abstract expressionism with forms, images and symbols inspired by the pre-Columbian art o ...

in 1998. The institute has also raised the profile of many artists to a wider UK public, including Israeli conceptual artist

Roee Rosen Roee Rosen (; born 1963) is an Israelis, Israeli multidisciplinary artist, writer and filmmaker. Biography Roee Rosen (born 1963 in Rehovot) studied philosophy and comparative literature studies in Tel Aviv University until 1984 and graduated ...

, British painter

Kimathi Donkor Kimathi Donkor (born in 1965) is a London-based contemporary British artist whose paintings are known for their exploration of global, black histories. His work is exhibited and collected by international museums, galleries and biennials includin ...

, British filmmaker Alia Syed, Indian conceptual group Raqs Media Collective and British contemporary artist Joy Gregory.

History

Iniva was founded in 1994 with a remit to address an imbalance in the way culturally diverse artists and curators were being represented in the UK. Funded by

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...

and governed by a board of trustees, the institute has worked with artists, curators, creative producers, writers and the public to explore and reflect cultural diversity in the visual arts. Rivington place psi

Iniva and Autograph ABP partnered to build Rivington Place, a five-floor, visual arts centre in East London. The £5 million building was designed by architect

David Adjaye Sir David Frank Adjaye (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect who has designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History, National Museum of African American History and ...

and opened to the public on 5 October 2007. It was the first publicly funded, purpose-built international visual arts venue constructed in London since the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...

opened more than 40 years earlier. Rivington Place housed two exhibition spaces and the Stuart Hall Library, established by Iniva, as well as art education and seminar rooms - plus the offices of Iniva and Autograph. Until 2008, cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall was chair of Iniva and Autograph ABP (the Association of Black Photographers, also based in Rivington Place). Iniva's first director was Gilane Tawadros, followed in 2005 by international curator Sebastián López, then the curator and cultural historian Dr

Gus Casely-Hayford Augustus Lavinus Casely-Hayford (born 1964) is a British curator, cultural historian, broadcaster and lecturer with ancestral Ghanaian roots in the Casely-Hayford family. He is presently the Director of V&A East and was formerly the Directo ...

Tessa Jackson Jane Thérèse "Tessa" Jackson OBE is a British art curator, writer and cultural advisor .Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council (), was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the Scottish Government as well as National Lottery funds ...

, and, from 2015, Melanie Keen, who was a curator at Iniva from 1996 to 2003, and most recently a senior manager at Arts Council England. Its funding has been greatly reduced in recent years. When the Arts Council announced its new National Portfolio Organisation structure for arts funding in 2012, Iniva's funding was cut by 43.3%, and by a further 62.3% in 2015. In October 2018, Iniva and the Stuart Hall Library moved out of Rivington Place, to the

in Pimlico.

Publishing

Iniva operated as an arts publishing house, often working in collaboration with larger publishers and producing books by writers such as the cultural theorist

Kobena Mercer Kobena Mercer (born 1960) is a British art historian and writer on contemporary art and visual culture. His writing on Robert Mapplethorpe and Rotimi Fani-Kayode has been described as "among the most incisive (and delightful to read) critiques of ...

, curator and educator Sarat Maharaj, artist

Sonia Boyce Dame Sonia Dawn Boyce (born 1962) is a British British African-Caribbean community, Afro-Caribbean artist and educator who lives and works in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research ...

the art historian

Guy Brett Guy Anthony Baliol Brett (1942–2021) was an English art critic, writer and curator. He was noted for a personal vision, particularly of cultural production of an experimental character. He is known for the promotion of Latin American artists, an ...

, and the art critic Jean Fisher.

Education and youth

Alongside its exhibitions and publications, the institute also runs a visual arts education programme, consisting of lectures, educational workshops and seminars. Based in the London borough of

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, the institute has developed a consistent strategy of working with young people, aimed at extending the field of arts education to include wider cultural objectives such as 'social inclusion' and personal development.

Governance

Iniva has charitable status under UK law and is governed by a board of trustees. Over the years board membership has included prominent figures in the world of ideas and the arts, including Stuart Hall, Yinka Shonibare, Sarat Maharaj,

Henry Louis Gates Jr Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of t ...

, and

Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Early life Juli ...

.Maggie Lee
"The Art of Being Different"
''Caribbean Beat'', Issue 73 (May/June 2005).

References

External links

* {{Coord, 51.4902, -0.1290, display=title Arts centres in London 1994 establishments in the United Kingdom Contemporary art galleries in London Art museums and galleries established in 2007