SYMPOSIUM AND BOOK LAUNCH: Metropolitan Crossings: Art, Displacement, and the Making of Modern London (1930s–1970s)
SYMPOSIUM AND BOOK LAUNCH
Metropolitan Crossings: Art, Displacement, and the Making of Modern London (1930s–1970s)
Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
108a Boundary Road, St John’s Wood, London, NW8 0RH
5–6 November 2025
To attend please register on Eventbrite.
Day 1 – Wednesday, 5 November 2025
09:00–09:45| Gallery Opens / Coffee and Networking
09:45–10:00 | Opening Remarks and introduction to the Ben Uri Research Unit
Panel 1 – From China and the Philippines to London | starts at 10:00
Chair: Sophie Guo, The Courtauld Institute of Art
10:00 | Lu Zhang (Independent scholar) – “Mr. F. T. Cheng Hosted Us at China Restaurant”: Art, Food, and Diasporic Expression in 1930s London
10:20 | Luna Huang Ruomin (Independent scholar) – Identity, Assemblage and Space- making: Diasporic Chinese Art Institutions in London
10:40 | Anne-Grit Becker (University of Siegen) – Knives and Poems: David Medalla’s “space for people”
11:05–11:20 | Discussion
11:20–11:35 | Coffee Break
Panel 2 – Diasporic Negotiations and Cross-Cultural Solidarities (Part I) | starts at 11:35
Chair: Joy Onyejiako, SOAS/Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
11:35 | Basil Olton (Highgate Art School) – Curating Artistic Migration in East London
11:55 | Helena Cuss (Independent scholar) – Diasporic solidarities? Jewish refugee art dealers and Black Commonwealth artists in postwar London
12:15 | Sabo Kpade (Independent scholar and curator) – Uzo Egonu’s London: Displacement, Belonging, and Archival Entanglements in the Making of Modern Metropole
12:40–12:55 | Discussion
12:55–13:55 | Lunch Break
Panel 2 (cont.) – Diasporic Negotiations and Cross-Cultural Solidarities (Part II) | starts 13:55
Chair: Joy Onyejiako, SOAS/Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
13:55 | Liz Bruchet and Ming Tiampo (UCL and Carleton University) – Slade Overseas Students and Conjunctures of Global Activism
14:15 | Fabian Röderer Williams (University of Hamburg) – Going to Britain? Photographic Politics of West Indian Arrival
14:35 | Ed Kettleborough (University of Bristol) – Image in Revolt: Frank Bowling and Derek Boshier at the Grabowski Gallery
15:05–15:20 | Discussion
15:20–15:35 | Coffee Break
Panel 3 – London Between the Mediterranean and the Baltic | starts 15:35
Chair: Elena Konyushikhina, The Courtauld Institute of Art
15:35 | Michael Paraskos (Imperial College London) – The Inflected Migration of Stass Paraskos (cancelled)
15:55 | Andra Silapētere (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art) – Latvian Exile Community in London: Contexts and Creative expressions
16:15 | Jelena Sofronijevic (Gray’s School of Art) – Sculpture and Solidarity: Petar Hadži Boškov in London, Bradford, and Skopje
16:40–16:55 | Discussion
16:55–17:05 | Coffee Break
Panel 4 – Geographies of Belonging from Iraq and Armenia | starts 17:05
Chair: tbc
17:05 | Alisha O’Brien-Coker (Tate Britain) – Beyond Babylon: Exploring and cross-comparing the artistic production of Dia al-Azzawi and Walid Siti between 1970s and 1980s
17:25 | Alyson Wharton-Durgaryan (University of Lincoln) – An Armenian Exodus: The Absence of Armenians in Shaping the Post-War London Market
17:50–18:00 | Discussion
18:00 | Drinks at Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
Day 2 – Thursday, 6 November 2025
09:00–10:00 | Gallery Opens / Coffee and Networking
Screening: Designing from Home (Harriet Atkinson and Sue Breakell)
Panel 5 – Women, Exile, and Trauma in Artistic Practice (Part I) | starts 10:00
Chair: Shaul Bar-Haim, University of Essex
10:00 | Marina Vinnik (Bauhaus University Weimar) – Otti Berger: Exile in London 1937, Silence and Untranslated Success
10:20 | Sarah MacDougall (Ben Uri Gallery and Museum) – “Almost Forgotten Today”: Katerina Wilczynski – Mapping Migration and the Mechanisms of Erasure)
10:40 | Ana-Maria Milčić (Ben Uri Research Unit/Austrian Academy of Science) – Sublimation and Subversion in Exile: Gertrude Elias and the Critique of British Psychiatry
(discussion to follow after end of panel)
11:05–11:15| Coffee Break
Panel 5 (cont.) – Women, Exile, and Trauma in Artistic Practice (Part II) | starts 11:15
Chair: Shaul Bar-Haim, University of Essex
11:20 | Natalia Mali (Independent scholar) – Unseen Women: Exile, Trauma, and Gender in the Art of Motesiczky and Carrington
11:40 | Rachel Dickson (Ben Uri Research Unit) – Unseen Women: Exile, Trauma, and Gender in the Art of Halina Korn and the Polish Network for Mental Health Patients in Postwar London
12:05–12:25 | Discussion
12:25–13:15 | Lunch Break
Panel 6 – Archives, Homes, and Artistic Recovery | starts 13:15
Chair: Claudia Treacher, independent scholar
13:15 | Harriet Atkinson and Sue Breakell (University of Brighton)– ‘Designing from Home’: the negotiation of identity and communities for designer FHK Henrion (1914-1990)
13:35 | Valeria Carullo (Royal Institute of British Architects) – The Circle 1943–68
14:00–14:10 | Discussion
14:10–14:25 | Coffee Break
Panel 7 – Jewish Women and Networks of Migration | starts 14:25
Chair: Fran Lloyd, Kingston University
14:25 | Cai Lyons (Independent scholar) – A Flair for Catching Hedgerow Genius: Lea Bondi Jaray, St. George’s Gallery, and the Transnational Networks of Post-War London
14:45 | Isobel Muir (Tate Britain) – ‘Art for the People’? An examination of the response of the ‘Modern Painters of To-Day’ exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, April 1942, curated by Lillian Browse
(5 min break)
15:10 | Monica Bohm-Duchen (Insiders/Outsiders) – Dorothy Bohm, London Street Photographer: ‘Not Just a City but a World’
15:30 | Emily Fuggle (Queen Mary/Ben Uri Gallery and Museum) – Becoming ‘one of the most important and vital organisations in the Jewish community’ : quantifying public programmes at the Ben Uri
15:55–16:15| Discussion
16:15–16:30 | Coffee Break
Book Launch
16:30–17:30 | Burcu Dogramaci, London Exile. Metropolis, Modernity, and Artistic Migration (Leuven University Press, 2025) with introduction by Ana-Maria Milčić, David Glasser and Mirjam Truwant.