NC Live at ICA

New Contemporaries artists present new live works as an opportunity to test out a work in progress, experiment or showcase new ideas. This event accompanies the New Contemporaries exhibition at the ICA.

The Artists

Motunrayo Akinola is a multimedia artist, who uses familiar domestic objects to create spaces which question society’s framing of contemporary issues. After graduating from Royal Academy Schools, Akinola recently completed a residency culminating in his solo show ‘Knees Kiss Ground’ at South London Gallery (2024).

Karen David is an artist who explores fiction and mythmaking as tools for practice-based research through material experiments, narratives and diagrams. Her PhD activated an imaginary commune where residents search for a 'viable essence'. Solo exhibitions include: SE8 Gallery (2024); CoVE, University of Worcester (2023); Pure Reason Tint of Violet, VITRINE (2014). Group exhibitions include Liquid Crystal Display, MIMA, Middlesborough (2019) and Site Gallery (2018); Tomb, Shrine, Survey-Marker, Spare-Part, Enclave Projects (2014). David has contributed articles to the Journal of Contemporary Painting (2024); The Open Arms (2021), curated The Collector’s Room, and is the founder of Cork Lined Rooms.

Sara Graça (b.1993, Lisbon) is a multidisciplinary artist interested in matters of authenticity, poetics, improvisation and emotion in material culture. She likes comparing her process in art making to the one of making songs. At the moment, Sara lives in London, where she just graduated from an MFA Fine Art in Goldsmiths University. Selected solo and group exhibitions took place in such spaces as Pedro Cera, Francisco Fino, Ampersand, A Certain Lack of Coherence, MALA, Spirit Shop, Sismógrafo, Galeria Quadrum, Casa de São Roque, Galeria Solar, Culturgest, among others. Sara can be seen collaborating regularly with members of Lisbon’s DIY music scene.

Fi Isidore (b. New York City, 1998) makes sculptural works that engage with the craft of furniture making as a form of staging and styling. Her first solo exhibition, Pomegranate Carved In The Round, opened at Larrie NY in 2022. She has participated in group shows such as Haute References (Gnossienne Gallery, 2024), Either a Rapture or an Existential Risk (Deli Gallery, CDMX, 2023), Salon ACME (CDMX, 2023), and 27 Orchard (Larrie, NY, 2022) and residencies including the Tajo-Saenger Residency (CDMX, 2023) and The Lab Program (CDMX 2019). She is currently studying the MFA Fine Arts at Goldsmiths University in London.