A century after the British Empire Exhibition (BEE), eleven artists reclaim the archive in a bold group show at Willesden Gallery, running from 12 June to 12 July 2025.
Decolonising Brent marks 100 years since the 1924 BEE, presenting a counter-narrative through radical, local creativity. The exhibition confronts colonial memory and reimagines future possibilities. Eleven interdisciplinary artists re-engage the BEE archive, exposing the imperial propaganda and human cost behind its spectacle.
Set in one of London’s most diverse boroughs, the show critically examines cultural imperialism and appropriation, rooted in settler colonialism and legalised slavery, systems designed for expansion and exploitation. A byproduct of this was the rise of the mega-exhibition, or “phantasmagoria,” as sociologist Max Weber described, grand, ghostly spectacles staging colonial fantasies under the guise of industrial progress.
As Hermansen and Hvattum noted, these exhibitions were “the most meaningful invention of modernity,” packaging ideologies like nationalism and empire as modernisation.
Today, as global crises escalate, Decolonising Brent responds with art that connects, resists, and reclaims. Brent is a living archive of survival and resistance. This exhibition calls us to remember, disrupt, and dismantle oppression.
More than a response, the show seeks to disrupt the BEE archive. Through painting, performance, installation, photography, and sound, it reckons with imperial spectacle while celebrating enduring communities. The artists reclaim histories of anti-colonial resistance, honour ancestors, and ignite a radical poetics of representation, a ritual act of conjuring toward 500 years of reparations.