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Book NowThu 27 Mar, 6.30pm
Gallery 2
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Access requirements
The Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
Information about access on site at the gallery is available here https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/
This includes information about Lift access; Borrowing wheelchairs & seating; Assistance Animals; Parking; Toilets and baby care facilities; Blind & Partially Sighted Visitors; Subtitles and transcripts; British Sign Language (BSL) and hearing induction loops; Deaf Messaging Service (DMS).
About This Event
This event takes place in Gallery 2 at Whitechapel Gallery, located on the ground floor.
This event lasts approximately 1.5 hours. There are no scheduled breaks, but attendees are welcome to take as many rest breaks as needed during the event
You must purchase a ticket to attend. Concession tickets are available. If you require a Personal Assistant to support your attendance, we can offer them a seat free of charge, but it must be arranged in advance.
This event is suitable for those over the age of 16
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event
We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
Transport
To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of the event.
Our nearest train station – Aldgate East Underground (1 min) is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are Whitechapel (15 min), Shoreditch High Street (15 min) or Liverpool Street (15 min).
Free parking for Blue Badge holders is available at the top of Osborn Street in the pay and display booths for an unlimited period. Spaces are available on a first come, first served basis.
Live Recording
Please note: we audio record all events for the Whitechapel Gallery Archive and possible future online publication via Soundcloud.
Join award-winning writer and director Caleb Femi in conversation with artist and poet Rohan Ayinde as they speak to poetic sensibilities, Blackness as a foundation and site of experimentation, and contemporary ideas around masculinity.
Taking the criticality and materiality of Donald Rodney’s practice as their starting point, Femi and Ayinde will mediate on the importance of art which engages with the social, political, and cultural concerns of our times.
Reflecting on poetry as a framework for world building and unravelling, the interconnectedness of poetry and film, and Blackness as a place from which we can set sail, explore, and experiment; this conversation will weave together critical narratives on Black masculinity and the crucial legacy and influence of artists like Donald Rodney.
This event accompanies our current exhibition Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker.
Attendees to this event can access an exclusive 20% discount on Donald Rodney: A Reader – the accompanying book to the Visceral Canker exhibition. The Reader brings together crucial perspectives from leading art historians, artists and peers, illuminating Donald Rodney’s enduring influence on contemporary art and cultural discourse.
To redeem this discount, please select the “Admission + Book” option when purchasing your ticket – your Reader will be available to collect from the info desk on the night of the event.
Supported by the Stanley Picker Trust.
Caleb Femi is an award-winning writer, director, and photographer, renowned for his powerful storytelling across multiple mediums. He is the author of Poor (2020) and The Wickedest (2024), both critically acclaimed for their genre-bending, lyrical exploration of contemporary life and the complexities of human experience. As a director, Caleb has brought his visionary style to TV episodes for HBO, BBC, and Netflix, as well as to high-profile commercials, high-fashion films, and runway shows.
Rohan Ayinde is an anadisciplinary artist and poet based between London and Chicago. Ayinde’s work traverses audio, visual and literary forms and often embraces installation and performance. Through an entanglement with the phenomenon of the black hole, their practice attempts to excavate an architecture of ideology through the analytical framework of black feminist thought. Investigating how the politics of place intersects with the conceptual, their poems, drawings, videos and performance work are translations and sketches of landscapes built from a freedom best imagined by writers like Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Lola Olufemi and Edouard Glissant.
Ayinde is one half of the wayward/motile collaborative duo i.as.in.we, with friend/producer/dancer Yewande YoYo Odunubi. He received his MA in Visual and Critical Studies from SAIC (2019) and is currently the Lead Curator at Blanc gallery (Chicago). Ayinde is part of the inaugural cohort of the Rose Choreographic School and a 2024 CIRCA Prize finalist. Ayinde’s most recent work is iwoyi: within the echo, a 5-screen-installation created with Tayo Rapoport for Beyond The Bassline: 500 years of Black British Music, at the British Library (2024).
