Ten.8 afterimage Exhibition Video

Ten.8 afterimage (1 May – 13 September 2026) explores the legacy and enduring impact of Ten.8 (1978–1992), a photography journal that emerged from the Midlands’ radical cultural and political landscape. Ten.8 played a key role in shaping critical debates about representation and the politics of photography.

This video offers filmed footage of the Ten.8 afterimage exhibition and includes interviews with Ten.8 afterimage curator Pelumi Odubanjo, ICF’s Artistic Director and Ten.8 editor David A Bailey, and exhibiting artist Heather Agyepong.

Ten.8 offered new ways of thinking about photography’s social, cultural and political responsibilities. Founded in Handsworth in 1979 amid major social and political change in Britain, the journal was shaped by several key moments across the later 20th century, from the Handsworth and Brixton uprisings, Thatcherite neoliberal reforms, and the rise of Black British cultural politics. Ten.8 also engaged with global conversations around feminist movements, gay and lesbian rights and struggles against apartheid, colonialism, and state violence. Ten.8 afterimage engages with the continued relevance of the contexts and concerns that the journal addressed. The exhibition brings photographic works produced in the 1980s and 1990s into dialogue with more recent artworks, bringing into focus key considerations raised by Ten.8 across the subjects of visibility, power, and representation.

The exhibition presents a newly commissioned work by British Ghanaian visual artist Heather Agyepong alongside works by Ajamu X, Dawoud Bey, Zarina Bhimji, Derek Bishton, Brian Homer & John Reardon, JEB (Joan E. Biren), Vanley Burke, Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Gon Buurman, Renee Cox, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Joy Gregory, Sunil Gupta, George Hallett, Claudette Holmes, Roshini Kempadoo, Dave Lewis, Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Masterji, Ming de Nasty, Ingrid Pollard, Franklyn Rodgers, Donald Rodney, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Jo Spence (in collaboration with Rosy Martin), James Van Der Zee, Maxine Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis.

Ten.8 afterimage is a collaboration between ICF and The New Art Gallery Walsall and is made possible with support from Arts Council England, Walsall Council, The Foyle Foundation, The Hollick Family Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant.

Video by Emotive Eye.