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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.

Audio work by Elsa James reimagining Essex through Black, queer and marginalised voices, techno rhythms, and speculative visions of social change. WORKS - SOUND - What Would Essex Look Like? 2022 What Would Essex Look Like? 2022 Audio 9:36 minutes This is the audio work for the final chapter, An Afro Future Narrative for Essex, of the three-part film Othered in a region that has been historically Othered , which reimagines Essex as a site of transformation and reconfigured social relations. An insistent techno rhythm runs through its structure, a nod to Essex’s 1990s rave culture. The composition centres Black, queer, and marginalised voices in Essex as part of a collective address that unfolds through an expanded listening space, echoing the chapter's proposition that Essex is a site where inherited hierarchies are destabilised, and new social possibilities begin to emerge. 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; Voice-over: Nathan Chaplin; Film stills: Andy Delaney <<< Jab Jab Essex The Journey >>> 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.

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.

Limited edition screenprints available for purchase, documenting anonymised racist microaggressions shared by four Black men reflecting on everyday experiences of growing up in or living in Essex, England. The works record lived encounters of racial bias and subtle violence, translating spoken testimony into visual form as a way of archiving, exposing, and critically reflecting on contemporary Black British life and its social realities. AVAILABLE EDITIONS Work No. 5: Untitled, 2021 Silkscreen print on Plike black 330gsm 68 x 68 cm (unframed) Edition 3 of 3 plus 1 AP Signed, dated, and numbered on the back £900 + shipping Part of The Blackness Prints Credits: Typographics: Fraser Muggeridge; Screenprint: The Printing Press; Photographed by Anna Lukula ENQUIRE HERE Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - PROJECTS - Eighty-Five Years, 2024 Eighty-Five Years, 2024 Digital video, sound 7:47 minutes Trigger Warning: This film contains sensitive content, including footage of a person experiencing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as scenes depicting a funeral. Viewer discretion is advised, as these images and themes may be distressing or evoke strong emotions. Eighty-Five Years traces my mother’s life through a selection of archival images and sound inherited from an extensive personal collection, including legal documents, letters, family albums, and an analogue music recording from her family home of fifty-five years. The film also incorporates footage captured on a mobile phone during her final months. Presented as a visual and auditory montage, the work sketches her journey from Trinidad to Britain. It reflects on her hopes and aspirations as a twenty-four-year-old woman moving across continents, her devotion to my father, the racism she encountered in the workplace, and her role as the family matriarch. The film concludes with her experience of living with Alzheimer’s disease, before dissolving into the full ritual of her Caribbean-style funeral in west London. Made with support for the Royal College of Art <<< The Journey We Stand With You >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - DURATIONAL PERFORMANCES - Gestures Towards Telling A New Narrative, 2024 Gestures Towards Telling A New Narrative, 2024 Durational Performance, with live drums by Irvin Pascal 24:00 minutes Performed in the Atlantic Worlds gallery, National Maritime Museum, London This intimate durational performance served as a symbolic farewell to the Atlantic Worlds gallery ahead of its temporary closure for a new phase of interpretation—one that seeks to resonate more meaningfully with the descendants of, and those impacted by, the transatlantic slave trade. The performance unfolded through a combination of chanting and movement, guided by the beat of the drum, and continued until the moment of inviting the spiritual ancestors into the gallery felt present. Commissioned by The Collective Makers for The National Maritime Museum Credits: With special thanks to Irvin Pascal, Lison Sabrina Musset and Joseph Ijoyemi from The Collective Makers, and Storm Thompson. Photographed by Big Skilly Media. <<< 150 Lies Myths and Truths Free to Flourish >>> 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 - COLLAGES - Osun-Osogbo, Windrush and Empire, 2025 Osun-Osogbo, Windrush and Empire, 2025 Ten hand-cut collages Indian ink and Xerox photocopies on watercolour paper 29.7 cm x 29.7 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 - Chisenhale Art Place, London, UK 2025 - Firstsite, Colchester. UK <<< Ode to David Lammy Aristocratic Woman, Monkey, Mask and Orka >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - SELECTED SCREENPRINTS - The Rebels of Breadnut Island Pen, 2025 Phibbah: Friday 17th September, 1770. Phibbah: Saturday 23rd April, 1774. Molia: Monday 21st April 1760. Molia: Tuesday 23rd August, 1763. Molia: Sunday 8th February, 1767. Phibbah: Friday 1st May, 1772. Molia: Friday 1st May, 1772. Phibbah: Sunday 25th July, 1779. The Rebels of Breadnut Island Pen, 2025 Eight screenprints on aluminium, red raffia 100 x 100 cm, each Edition of 3 These eight screenprints respond to The Thomas Thistlewood Papers, held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Thistlewood (1721–1786), born in Lincolnshire, England, was a notorious enslaver, planter, diarist, and serial rapist. In 1750, he migrated to Jamaica—Britain’s wealthiest colony at the height of the transatlantic slave trade—initially working as an overseer on several plantations before purchasing Breadnut Island Pen. Thistlewood kept extensive diaries spanning over 14,000 pages, meticulously documenting the atrocities he committed against the people he enslaved. His journals reveal the appalling conditions they endured, marked by relentless sexual violence and a brutal system of discipline. As an act of dehumanisation, he branded each enslaved person with his initials, 'TT,' searing them into their right shoulders. Among his victims were Phibbah and Molia. Jamaican-born Phibbah worked as a domestic servant, overseeing the upkeep of his plantation house. Thistlewood referred to her as his long-term concubine, and she bore his only son. In contrast, Molia arrived at Breadnut Island Pen as a fifteen-year-old girl of Igbo origin, having survived the harrowing Middle Passage from West Africa. After purchasing and branding Molia, Thistlewood renamed her Coobah and forced her into field labour until he eventually sold her. Explore the accompanying audio here . Commissioned by Firstsite as part of the solo exhibition It Should Not Be Forgotten, 2025. Funded by Arts Council England, Firstsite and Trevor Fenwick. With support from the Royal College of Art. Credit: Screenprint by K2 Screens, Photographed by Andrew Moller Exhibition history: 2025 - Firstsite, Colchester, UK <<< Black Radicals The Black Interior >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

WORKS - MOVING IMAGES - Goat Curry and Rap, 2010 Goat Curry and Rap, 2010 MiniDV camcorder to digital video, sound 5:19 minutes (2:26-minute excerpt below) Edition of 3 and 1 AP Filmed at home, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Goat Curry and Rap was created in response to a Spectator column written by the English journalist, Rod Liddle, that stated, "The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry, and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures, which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks." Screening history: 2024 - Art Museum, University of Toronto, CA 2019 - Firstsite, Colchester, UK 2018 - Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend, UK 2010 - Chelsea College of Art, London, UK <<< Forgotten Black Essex: Princess Dinubolu 150 Lies Myths and Truths >>> Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

AVAILABLE EDITIONS We Stand With You, 2021 Silkscreen print on Plike Black 330gsm 42 x 59.4 cm (unframed) Edition 1 of 5 Artists' Proofs Signed, dated, and numbered on the back £310 + shipping Devised in response to the public spectacle of George Floyd’s torture and murder by Derek Chauvin, this work emerged during a moment of global reckoning. The first iteration of the print was created during lockdown as a free A4 download, intended for display in the front windows of homes across the UK. It functioned as a visible pledge of solidarity with Black communities—an expression of support for their ongoing struggle against racism, structural discrimination, and enduring injustice. At its core, the work calls for the United Kingdom to stand united in confronting these urgent and persistent issues. Credits: Typographics: Proof; Screenprint: K2Screens; Photographed by Anna Lukula ENQUIRE HERE Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.

Elsa James is a Black British visual artist based in Essex whose multidisciplinary practice explores Black liberation and diaspora histories in the UK BIO CV PUBLICATIONS PRESS MEDIA Biography Close Elsa James is a British African-Caribbean visual artist based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Her research-based, multidisciplinary practice is grounded in Black liberation, speculative reimagining, and critical hope to question and disrupt the enduring structures, logics, and historical inequities of the British Empire. As a descendant of the Windrush generation, born to a Trinidadian mother and a father from the Grenadian island of Carriacou, she engages diasporic histories of migration, displacement, and belonging through her work. Her practice spans moving image (in which she performs), performance, text-based screenprint, large-scale neon, collage, and sound. Across these art forms, she constructs layered visual and sonic conversations, drawing on archival fragments, embodied and intuitive memory, and contemporary Black life, often collapsing personal and historical registers within a single work. "It is a practice that uses dramatic, understated confrontation as a means of uncovering the consequences of historical prejudice and exclusion, and the uncomfortable echoes of those past attitudes in our own time". — Dr Jon Blackwood Solo exhibitions and performances include Elsa James: It Should Not Be Forgotten , Firstsite, Colchester (2025); Gestures Towards Telling a New Narrative , National Maritime Museum, London (2024); Free to Flourish , Tate Britain, London (2023); Othered in a region that has been historically Othered , Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2022); and Elsa James: Black Girl Essex , Firstsite, Colchester (2019). Recent group exhibitions include How to Be in the Future? Chisenhale Art Place, London (2025); There are other skies, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, USA (2025); Liberation in Four Movements, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Canada (2024); Intension (the concept ‘dog’ encapsulates its ‘dogness’) , Copperfield, London (2024); Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Hayward Gallery Touring — Arnolfini, Bristol; Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield; Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee, Scotland; VISUAL, Carlow, Ireland (2024–26); and Rites of Passage , Gagosian, London (2023). Her work is held in private and public collections, including the UK Government Art Collection and Beecroft Art Gallery, where she became the first Black British artist to have work acquired for the gallery’s permanent collection. In 2024, James was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex in recognition of her contributions to contemporary art and cultural history in Essex, foregrounding the region’s overlooked Black presence and histories. She was a finalist for the Freelands Award in 2021 for her first major institutional solo exhibition, Othered in a region that has been historically Othered , at Focal Point Gallery, and received the Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award in 2023. In 2022, she was named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Essex. She is currently undertaking a part-time Master of Research (Practice-Based) at the Royal College of Art as a recipient of the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship (2024–27), and developing Afro Dada , an evolving artistic methodology and body of work that informs her studio practice and research. Photo: Big Skilly Media, National Maritime Museum, 2023 Elsa James © 2026. All Rights Reserved.