Explore the Moving Image works of artist Elsa James WORKS - MOVING IMAGES Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar, 2023 Contemporary Echoes of the Subjugation of the Women of Essex, 2022 A Jab Jab Awakening Towards A New Essex, 2022 An Afro Future Narrative for Essex, 2022 Black Girl Essex, Here We Come, Look We Here, 2019 Forgotten Black Essex, Hester and Hester Woodley, 2018 Forgotten Black Essex, Princess Dinubolu, 2018 Goat Curry and Rap, 2010 150 Lies Myths and Truths, 2006 Durational performances >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKs - MOVING IMAGES - 150 Lies Myths and Truths, 2006 150 Lies Myths and Truths, 2006 MiniDV camcorder to digital video, no sound 18:01 minutes (2:59-minute excerpt below) Edition of 3 and 1 AP A film made in response to a pregnancy scan confirming I was having another girl, and thinking about the multitude of terms that exist in the world, both historical and contemporary, for Black women and girls. Screening history: 2025 - VISUAL Carlow, Ireland 2025 - Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, UK 2024 - Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, UK 2024 - Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, UK 2024 - Arnolfini, Bristol, UK 2023 - Unit London, London, UK 2019 - Firstsite, Colchester, UK 2007 - Triangle Space, London, UK 2006 - Havering College, London, UK <<< Goat Curry and Rap Gestures Towards Telling A New Narrative >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

The Blackness Series is an ongoing series of numbered text works by Elsa James, begun in 2016 and continuing today, documenting historical and contemporary Black lived experience alongside critical social commentary. Rendered in black type on a black background, the works are deliberately difficult to read, exploring tensions of hypervisibility and invisibility. The text becomes legible only as light shifts across its surface, on screen or in physical space. ​ WORKS - SELECTED SCREENPRINTS - The Blackness Prints, 2021 Work No. 4: Hey, We're Over Here! Work No. 7: Policy Note to Essex Work No. 5: Untitled The Blackness Prints, 2021 Three screenprints on paper 68 x 68 cm Edition of 3 and 1 AP, each This collection of works constitutes the first iteration of screenprints from The Blackness Series . Collections: Government Art Collection Collection of Melanie Keen Credits: Typographics: Fraser Muggeridge; Screenprint: The Printing Press; Photographed by Anna Lukula <<< The Black Interior The Mary Prince Narrative Part I >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Filmed at London Museum Docklands, this work by Elsa James re-examines narratives of slavery, heritage and identity through a contemporary artistic lens. WORKS - MOVING IMAGES - Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar, 2023 Living in the Wake of the Lust for Sugar, 2023 4K digital video, stereo sound 7:53 minutes (2:27-minute excerpt below) Filmed in the London Sugar and Slavery Gallery, London Museum Docklands, London "The aim was to re-examine the existing narrative of the gallery, which was created in 2007, by expanding its interpretation with an artistic perspective connected to the audience that the gallery represents. For an institution like ours, the accuracy of her [James] vision, the finesse of her thinking, are precious tools to offer a new narrative on heritage and identity ." — Jean-François Manicom, Senior Curator (Docklands History and Legacies) Commissioned by the London Museum Docklands Credits: Written, performed and narrated by Elsa James; Co-directed by Andy Delaney and Elsa James; Co-edited by Andy Delaney and Elsa James; Sound designed by Greg Birkumshaw; Lighting by Struan Wallace; Narration recorded by Graham Tobias; Camera assistant: Graham Tobias; Set assistant: Storm Thompson; Makeup: Storm Thompson and Costume: Elsa James. All film stills: Andy Delaney. Screening history: 2024 - Art Museum, University of Toronto, CA 2023 - London Museum Docklands, London, UK Contemporary Echoes of the Subjugation of the Women of Essex >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Afro Dada collages exploring fragmented histories, Caribbean lineage, and Britain’s colonial amnesia, created live at Firstsite in 2025. WORKS - SELECTED COLLAGES Aristocratic Woman, Monkey, Mask and Orka, 2025 Aristocratic Woman, Monkey, Mask and Orka , 2025 Four hand-cut collages Xerox photocopies and paint on cartridge paper 42 cm x 59.4 cm, each These works form part of the first iteration of Afro Dada and were created publicly during the solo exhibition It Should Not Be Forgotten, Firstsite, 2025, in a gallery space transformed into a working artist’s studio. Commissioned by Firstsite. Funded by Arts Council England, Firstsite, and Trevor Fenwick. With support from the Royal College of Art. Exhibition history: 2025 - Firstsite, Colchester. UK <<< Osun-Osogbo, Windrush and Empire Black Radicals >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

AVAILABLE EDITIONS Work No. 25: Living Here, 2022 Silkscreen print on Plike Black 330gsm 68 x 68 cm (unframed) Edition 1 of 1 plus 1 Exhibition copy Signed, dated, and numbered on the back Documentation of racist microaggressions, shared anonymously by four Black men reflecting on their everyday experiences of growing up in, or currently living in, Essex, England. Part of The Black Interior works here Credits: Typographics: Proof; Screenprint: K2Screens; Photographed by Anna Lukula ENQUIRE HERE Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - DIGITAL ART The Mary Prince Narratives Part I, 2023 The Blackness Series, 2016- date <<< Screenprints Sound >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - SOUND - The Journey, 2022 The Journey, 2022 Audio 14:45 mins, loop The Journey is a spatial sound work that moves through threshold, transition, and psychological passage, inspired by an eerie, vivid two-hour journey from Accra to Elmina Castle on Ghana’s coast in 2005. Once one of the most strategic sites within the triangular trade routes of the British transatlantic slave trade, Elmina Castle houses the ‘Door of No Return’—the portal through which enslaved Africans were forced onto ships bound for the Atlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage. Unfolding as a state of suspension—neither arrival nor departure—the work situates the listener within an unresolved in-between. Here, the corridor becomes a site of reflection and disorientation, where what is heard slips between presence and absence, and where endings remain perpetually deferred. In this way, The Journey prepares audiences for The Black Interior (2022), encountered in the adjoining gallery. Listen on Soundcloud here Commissioned by Focal Point Gallery as part of the solo exhibition Othered in a region that has been historically Othered, 2022. Funded by Arts Council England, Focal Point Gallery and Southend-on-Sea City Council. Credits: Designed by Trevor Mathison with Elsa James. Audio installation by KSO Digital. Image: Paul Bates and Gabrielle Milanese <<< What Would Essex Look Like? Eighty-Five Years >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Afro Dada collages exploring fragmented histories, Caribbean lineage, and Britain’s colonial amnesia, created live at Firstsite in 2025. WORKS - SELECTED COLLAGE S- Black Radicals, 2025 Black Radicals, 2025 Three hand-cut collages Xerox photocopies and paint on cartridge paper 42 cm x 59.4 cm, each These works form part of the first iteration of Afro Dada and were created publicly during the solo exhibition It Should Not Be Forgotten, Firstsite, 2025, in a gallery space transformed into a working artist’s studio. Commissioned by Firstsite. Funded by Arts Council England, Firstsite, and Trevor Fenwick. With support from the Royal College of Art. Exhibition history: 2025 - Firstsite, Colchester. UK <<< Aristocratic Woman, Monkey, Mask and Orka Current Afro Dada Studio work >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Explore the practice of Elsa James, a Black British multidisciplinary artist based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Her research-led work engages Black liberation, speculative reimagining, and critical hope to challenge the enduring structures and histories of the British Empire. Through moving image, performance, text, neon, collage, and sound, she weaves archival fragments, embodied memory, and contemporary Black life into layered, socially engaged contemporary art. WORKS COLLAGES NEONS SCREENPRINTS MOVING IMAGES DURATIONAL PERFORMANCES PHOTO-BASED PERFORMANCE DIGITAL ART SOUND PROJECTS Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - DIGITAL ART - The Mary Prince Narratives Part I, 2023 Panel one of fifty-one Panel two of fifty-one Panel three of fifty-one Panel four of fifty-one Panel five of fifty-one Panel six of fifty-one Panel seven of fifty-one Panel eight of fifty-one Panel nine of fifty-one Panel ten of fifty-one Panel eleven of fifty-one Panel twelve of fifty-one Panel thirteen of fifty-one Panel fourteen of fifty-one Panel fifthteen of fifty-one Panel sixteen of fifty-one Panel seventeen of fifty-one Panel eighteen of fifty-one Panel nineteen of fifty-one Panel twenty of fifty-one Panel twenty-one of fifty-one Panel twenty-two of fifty-one Panel twenty-three of fifty-one Panel twenty-four of fifty-one Panel twenty-five of fifty-one The Mary Prince Narratives Part I, 2023 Digital art Fifty-one panels For optimal viewing, access these digital artworks on a desktop screen These narratives are excerpts taken from The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave. Related by Herself (1831). Prince is the first known Black woman to publish a narrative of her experience of enslavement in England. “I have been drawn to bringing the autobiographical account of Mary Prince to the forefront of a contemporary discourse because most of what we know and understand about enslaved life derives from the diaries of white enslavers, and the limited first-hand accounts we have directly from enslaved individuals are from freed enslaved black men.” Elsa James The Mary Prince Narratives are part of The Blackness Series <<< The Blackness Prints The Blackness Series >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - MOVING IMAGES - An Afro Future Narrative for Essex, 2022 An Afro Future Narrative for Essex Chapter three of the three-part film: Othered in a region that has been historically Othered, 2022 4K digital video, stereo sound 11:48 minutes (2:01-minute excerpt below) Edition of 3 and 1 AP Filmed under the M25, Thurrock, Essex. The final chapter moves beneath the M25, shifting into a speculative future. An insistent voiceover, layered over a hypnotic techno rhythm—a nod to Essex’s rave culture—articulates a reimagining of the region as a space that embraces, rather than marginalises, difference. In contrast to the hostile environment of the past and present, the work proposes an alternative social imaginary grounded in inclusion and transformation. The spoken refrain poses a series of propositions: what might Essex become if normative hierarchies were overturned; if the “Othered” were centred; if the anxieties surrounding difference were relinquished; and if reductive identities such as the “Essex girl” or “Essex man” had never taken hold. In this formulation, Essex is recast as a site capable of modelling a more equitable future. Read the published lyrics here; explore the accompanying audio here Commissioned by Focal Point Gallery as part of the solo exhibition titled Othered in a region that has been historically Othered , 2022. Funded by Arts Council England, Focal Point Gallery and Southend-on-Sea City Council. With support from Art Exchange at the University of Essex. Chapter three credits: Conceived, written and produced by Elsa James from focus groups she held with the Black Student Societies at the University of Essex and South Essex LGBTQIA+ community members: Fanny Von Beaverhausen, Elliot Gibbons, George Morl, and Lu Williams. Film performance: Elsa James; Filmed, directed and edited: Andy Delaney; Colourist: Adrian Seery; Sound composer and designer: Trevor Mathison; Camera Assistant: Graham Tobias; Lighting Crew: Alex Wallace and Scott Wallace; Movement Director: Lea Orož; Titles: Rich With; Production Assistance: Sue Withers; Costume Designer: Symone Williams; Costume Designer’s Assistant: Allyson Williams MBE; Make-up: Jamilat Charles; Voiceover: Nathan Chaplin. All film stills: Andy Delaney. Screening history: 2023 - G.A.S. Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria 2023 - Birkbeck Cinema (BIMI), London 2022 - Focal Point Gallery, Southend, Essex, UK <<< A Jab Jab Awakening Towards A New Essex Black Girl Essex, Here We Come, Look We Here >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.