Events, Festivals and Exhibitions

Beginning 18 September 2024, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum will revolutionise The Curve with a comprehensive installation that spans the Barbican’s unique cornerless gallery, marking her inaugural solo exhibition at a major UK institution. Sunstrum extends her fascination with narrative world-building, creating a collection of drawings, paintings, and installations that introduce a fresh character to her expanding ensemble of alter-egos.

It Will End in Tears

The extensive installation, conceived specifically for The Curve in partnership with Remco Osório Lobato, invites visitors to explore the quotidian of rural life in a fictionalised twentieth-century colonial settlement, loosely inspired by Sunstrum’s grandmother’s hometown in Botswana. Mimicking a series of interconnected film sets, the audience will assemble a fragmented narrative as they traverse through homely spaces, colonial offices and transit lounges, becoming part of the artist’s envisioned world and dissolving the line between observation and interaction.

Drawing from crime fiction and mid-century film noir, this novel collection confronts the femme fatale archetype, which often employs simplistic and misogynistic representations of women in literature, art and film. Sunstrum leverages her diverse experiences across Africa, South Asia and North America to delve into themes of domicile, composite identities and integrity.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum says: “I learned that The Curve originally served as a sound barrier: a buffer to contain all manner of performative noise emanating from the adjacent Barbican concert Hall. I became fascinated by this liminal zone: a space that encases not only the spectacle, but also the secrets of the spectacle’s tricks and devices. I have always been a bit obsessed by such liminal spaces— the in-between, the not-quite-one-nor-the other. For me, liminality offers a powerful symbol and speaks to cycles of survival tactics, longing, desire, and the pursuit of home and wholeness…that even when squeezed between two barriers, history still persists.”

The Curve Opening Hours

The Curve is open 11am – 7pm. Entry to The Curve is free.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: It Will End in Tears, Works in progress in Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s studio, The Hague, Netherlands, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery. Photo: Lotte van Uitterst.