Coventry Biennial 2025: Obsessions, Possessions

Friday 3 October 2025 - Sunday 25 January 2026 Show all dates and times

Obsessions, Possessions with by the 5th festival of exhibitions, events and activities.

COMING SOON | Friday 3 October 2025 - Sunday 25 January 2026

Coventry Biennial 2025 will facilitate a collective exploration of the roles and functions of collecting within the art, museum, heritage and knowledge production sectors, the wider community and the artists’ studio.

The programme of exhibitions, events and activities will platform the co-creation and presentation of new artworks and exciting reimaginings of collections and archives rooted in society’s shared obsessions and possessions.

Ranging from major national art collections to personal and family archives, from libraries to what can be found beneath your kitchen sink, from warehouses full of artworks to photo albums full of memories, we will explore how and why we collect, what it means to collect and will examine the impacts, legacies, politics and problematics of what is (or isn’t) included.

Displaying Artists:

SIMEON BARCLAY AND ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION

Leeds-based artist Simeon Barclay will curate a dynamic group exhibition drawn exclusively from the Arts Council Collection, exploring the rich and complex history of Coventry. Charting the city as a site of transformation and regeneration - from its industrial prominence, through to the devastation of the Second World War and the city’s ambitious post-war reconstruction - the exhibition will reflect on broader themes of nation-building, identity and community.

Featuring sculpture, film, painting, photography, and works on paper, Simeon uses the Collection as both a resource and a point of departure to examine how public collections can illuminate evolving histories of space, place, and belonging. At its core, the exhibition highlights how an individual can use a collection to explore and better understand themselves, their interests, and the world around them.

 

in transit under another sky

E.N. Mirembe and Rosie Olang’ Odhiambo will continue their collaboration to curate a group exhibition that brings together works from the British Council’s Collection and other works by a range of artists from across east Africa.

in transit under another sky brings together the work of artists including Larry Achiampong who engage deeply with themes of transience, marginal identities, and the idea of practice, objects and collections navigating between physical spaces and geographies.

 

LEAH GORDON: MONUMENT TO THE VANQUISHED PEASANTS

Artist, curator and writer Leah Gordon presents a solo exhibition of new and recent works commissioned by Meadow Arts, exploring the lasting impacts of the Enclosure Acts to build a critical understanding of the systems and politics we live with today.

Monument to the Vanquished Peasants includes works created over the last three years, as well as a new commission, Urban Vagabonds, and a series of photographs made in collaboration with local allotment holders in Coventry. The exhibition is further contextualised by the presentation of images from author and image-collector Stephen Ellcock’s archive, alongside objects from the Museum of English Rural Life.

 

SOPHIA EHRNROOTH: 879 HEROES BY HEART

Helsinki-based artist and filmmaker Sophia Ehrnrooth will present a major four screen moving image installation with the support of Frame Contemporary Art Finland. The work was originally made in 2016 and has been shown internationally but never in its intended four screen configuration.