The artist Sonia Boyce was born in London, England in 1962. In the early 1980s, Boyce was a part of the burgeoning Black Arts Movement. In 1987, she became one of the youngest artists of her generation to have her artwork acquired by the Tate and the first Black-British female artist to enter the collection. Her work used figurative pastel drawings and photo collages that addressed issues of race and gender in Britain. Since the 1990s, Boyce’s practice has taken a significant multi-media and improvisational turn by bringing people together in a dynamic, social practice that encourages others to speak, sing or move about the past and the present. Using photography and sound in multi-media installations, Boyce’s practice is fundamentally collaborative and inclusive, fostering a participatory approach that questions artistic authorship and cultural difference. At the heart of her work are questions about the production and reception of unexpected gestures, with an underlying interest in the intersection of personal and political subjectivities. For nearly forty years, Boyce has consistently worked within the art school context. Since 2014, she has been a Professor at the University of the Arts London, where she holds the inaugural Chair in Black Art & Design. Boyce did a three-year research project into Black artists and modernism, culminating in the 2018 BBC Four documentary, “Whoever Heard of a Black Artist?” - which explored the contribution of overlooked artists of African and Asian descent to the story of Modern British art.

click here