Lubaina Himid, The Thin Black Line, 2022

New limited edition print by Lubaina Himid launched to mark the 75^th anniversary of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. This edition includes the names of the artists who were part of The Thin Black Line exhibition Lubaina Himid organised at the ICA in 1985. Marking the arrival on the British art scene of a radical generation of young Black and Asian women artists. They challenged their collective invisibility in the art world and engaged with the social, cultural, political and aesthetic issues of the time.

"Some people said I was a cultural terrorist because I made this exhibition in 1985. Others warned me that the ICA would never show the work of Black Women Artists again once The Thin Black Line was over. The print I’ve designed to celebrate 75 years of the ICA is a letter to the doubters to remind everyone that the exhibition is important now and was important even then. The artists involved were ready, at that time, to be taken seriously and many of us have managed to keep making work and developing our practice during the past 37 years despite the changing fashions and the political shenanigans at work during the intervening period. We have tried not to let it hold us back, slow us down or wear us out." – Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar) lives and works in Preston, UK, and is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. She is the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize. Her work is held in various museum and public collections, including Tate; British Council Collection; Arts Council Collection; UK Government Art Collection; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Victoria & Albert Museum, London;  Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.