Leanne Petersen is a curator, creative producer and freelance writer. She has curated and produced several projects for organisations including the second iteration of the Hackney Windrush Art Commission by Thomas J Price entitled ‘Warm Shores’ 2022. Her experience previously held posts at Hauser & Wirth (London), David Zwirner Gallery (London/New York) and Autograph ABP (London) where she co-organised solo artists commissions by Phoebe Boswell: The Space Between Things (2019), Arpita Shah: The Scared Cloth (2018) and Omar Victor Diop: Liberty/Diaspora (2018). Her research and writing practice centres around Black British history focusing on oral and written histories, lived experiences and introspection surrounding identity and representation. She has been published online and in print for publications including Frieze and Art Monthly.

For the second edition of the Post-National Digital Pavilion, iniva presents Unseen Guests: a series of commissions of eight artists based in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), working across new media, audiovisual and writing to create new works in dialogue with the work of filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, representing Great Britain at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale

The Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva) is an evolving visual arts organisation dedicated to nurturing and disseminating radical and emergent decolonising and unlearning practices centring Global Majority, Indigenous, African, Asian, Caribbean, Polynesian, Latinx & Diaspora perspectives that reflects on the social and political impact of globalisation.

The Pavilion is a series of radical re-imaginings of nationhood, reflecting on the entanglement between land and water, movement and m/otherlands, in the forging of new identities and subjectivities.

The project is supported by British Council.

Unseen Guests is curated by Beatriz Lobo Britto and Renée Akitelek Mboya, and produced by Leanne Petersen.

Artists developing new works include ibiye Camp, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Gladys Kalichini, Rodrigo Nava Ramirez, Shamica Ruddock, Yaa Addae, Alexis G Teyie and Helena Uambembe.

Unseen Guest Project Team

Sepake Angiama - iniva Artistic Director
Beatriz Lobo - UK Curator
Renée Akitelek Mboya - SSA Curator
Leanne Petersen - Project Producer
Rodrigo Nava Ramirez - Web Development and Design

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