Whitechapel Gallery Takeover: East London Art Prize Late
Thursday 23rd October 2025 , 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Get to know some of this year’s East London Art Prize shortlisted artists as they take over Whitechapel Gallery in an after-hours programme featuring a host of music, performances, workshops and screenings. Featuring live performances by Gusty Ferro, Joseph Ijoyemi and Lydia Newman, workshops by Darcey Fleming and Liang-Jung Chen, an immersive talk by dmstfctn and films by Laisul Hoque, Eugene Macki and Yang Zou.
Get to know some of this year’s East London Art Prize shortlisted artists as they take over Whitechapel Gallery in an after-hours programme featuring a host of music, performances, workshops and screenings. Bring your friends, grab a drink, and bask in the multitude of creativity and imagination that brings together this community of east London artists.
Featuring live performances by Gusty Ferro, Joseph Ijoyemi and Lydia Newman, workshops by Darcey Fleming and Liang-Jung Chen, an immersive talk by dmstfctn and films by Laisul Hoque, Eugene Macki and Yang Zou.
The full programme will be announced in July. Stay tuned!
Please note: Whitechapel Gallery’s spaces have limited capacities – they recommend arriving early to avoid disappointment. Find out more on Whitechapel Gallery’s website.
There will be photography taken at this event for Bow Arts and Whitechapel Gallery’s internal reporting and for sharing in print and social media.
This event is co-curated by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts and Seung Sing Sou, Curator: Public Programmes at Whitechapel Gallery.
More about Liang-Jung Chen
Liang-Jung Chen is an interdisciplinary artist working across drawing, object, installation and performance. Her practice is deeply informed by material culture in anthropological study which leads her to investigate the usage, consumption, creation and trade of artefacts, as well as the behaviours, norms and rituals associated with them. Intrigued by tensions embedded in everyday scenarios, each series of her work scrutinises a specific interaction between a daily object and its user.
Chen also runs ii (initial initiatives), a design and research-driven creative practice, and hardware archive, a virtual home to a random selection of household hardware items found online and around the world. Selected exhibitions include Regarding the Retractability of Boundaries, V&A, London (2024); Have you had breakfast yet? Hweg, Cornwall (2024); On Tenderness and Time, Daniel Katz Gallery, London (2024); Minus20degree Biennale, Flachau (2024); Plus20degree, Galerie Im Traklhaus, Salzburg (2024); Playing House, Hudson Wilder, New York (2023; The Spout and its Churn Rate, Tangent Projects, Barcelona (2022); Local Ware: cooking edition, Oros, Marseille (2021); The egg rack made a disclaimer 2.0, Now Space, Taipei (2021); The egg rack made a disclaimer 1.0, Error22, Tainan (2020); 1 two 1 two, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2020); The Misused 3.0, Coal Drops Yard, London (2020); The Misused 2.0, Taiwan Design Research Institute, Taipei (2020); The Misused 2.0, Piet Hein Eek, Eindhoven (2019).
More about dmstfctn
London-based artist duo dmstfctn, pronounced demystification, explores opaque systems of power through performance, installation, video games and film. Their work often involves audiences directly, inviting them into the ‘demystification’ of systems by replicating and replaying them, and into their ‘remystification’ by building worlds, characters and myths atop them.
Since 2018, dmstfctn have performed and exhibited internationally in venues such as Berghain, Serpentine, Design Museum, HKW and at festivals such as Unsound, CTM, transmediale, Impakt. In 2021, Krisis Publishing released ECHO FX, the duo’s show about Brexit market manipulation later included in Ø (Flatlines/Hyperdub). In 2019, Mille Plateaux released Flash Demons, a collection of performances focusing on financial market crashes. From 1 November 2024 to 31 March 2025, dmstfctn’s video game Godmode Epochs will be exhibited at the Singapore Art Museum as part of Open Systems, curated by Rafi Abdullah and Duncan Bass.
More about Gusty Ferro
Gusty Ferro works across sculpture, video, sound, drawing and installation. Ferro considers their approach a form of personal cartography, one that centres and the ‘other’ as witness to the shifting dynamics of control, negotiation, and desire to shape public space.
They graduated in BA Visual Arts at Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo in 2011 and participated in the fine arts roaming programme School of the Damned (2019). Ferro has exhibited and done residencies across Latin America and the UK, including at TACO (London), Glasgow Sculpture Studios, SWG3 Gallery (Glasgow), Abingdon Studios (Blackpool), Manchester Contemporary, No Lugar (Quito), Centre de Producció Hangar (Barcelona) and Centro Cultural São Paulo. Ferro will graduate from the Royal Academy Schools postgraduate programme in 2025.
More about Darcey Fleming
Darcey Fleming works across sculpture, photography, performance, and drawing, often featuring the human body. Her practice embodies a dynamic interplay between the lighthearted and the formal, concealing a deeper emotional undercurrent of loneliness and isolation. Traditional techniques and the use of discarded and humble materials are central to her practice. Using overlooked materials such as recycled twine donated to her by local farmers, Fleming creates immersive environments that protect, hide, free and connect her.
Fleming has exhibited across London, including at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023, where David Remfry stated that Fleming’s work ‘captured the true essence of the show’. She has exhibited at MK Gallery, and has a large public sculpture being released later in 2025. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including W Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Plaster Magazine, Pirelli Calendar, Luncheon Magazine, Print Publication, Vogue Portugal, Vogue Scandinavia, on the cover of EXIT magazine, Altered States Magazine, i-D Magazine, TANK Magazine, The Times and The Telegraph. Her works are in Tim Marlow’s (OBE) private collection, and her commission for Soho Farmhouse is the largest artwork in the company’s art collection. Fleming is an artist in residence on the Lee Alexander McQueen Sarabande Foundation. Alongside her art practice, Fleming has a degree from UCL in Social Sciences and is currently completing an MSc at The London School of Economics which further feeds into her practice.
More about Laisul Hoque
Laisul Hoque was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he studied BA English Literature at North South University before completing an MA in Contemporary Photography, Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins, UAL, London. Hoque is the winner of East London Art Prize 2025 and a finalist for the 2024 CIRCA Prize. Drawing from his memories and lived experiences, he creates image-based works and installations that explore and decode microhistories and their global impacts. His practice investigates communication, miscommunication, and adopts a reparative reading of the past.
Selected exhibitions / screenings include An Ode to All the Flavours, a day-long Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Group Screening in the International Program, EXPERIMENTA, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, screened at Piccadilly Lights screen, London, Limes Kurfürstendamm screen, Berlin, Essilor Luxottica screen in Cadorna Square, Milan, as part of CIRCA Prize 2024; An Ode to All the Flavours, Solo Exhibition, Kobi Nazrul Centre, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Solo Screening, Studio 6/6, Dhaka (2024); Shorts: Joyful Lands, Joyful Bodies, Chronic Youth Film Festival, Group Screening, Barbican Centre, London (2024); I Don’t Call Enough but I’m Here Now, Solo Exhibition, Oitij-jo, London (2024).
More about Joseph Ijoyemi
Joseph Ijoyemi is a Swedish-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist whose work combines diverse materials and imagery to tell stories fuelled by life experiences, cultural conversations, and a deep connection to his heritage. His output includes sculptures, multimedia installations, and sound performances, through which he shapes conversations around the African diaspora.
Ijoyemi holds a MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins. He has previously won the prestigious Helen Scott Lidgett Award, and was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Prize 2023. His works were exhibited at Camden Art Centre, London, and Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, as part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023. Joseph is co-founder of The Collective Makers, and organisation that mentors and empowers young creatives, and he was recently awarded the MEAD Fellowship at UAL for his project Tracing Roots: Exploring Nigerian Heritage Through Ondo’s Treasures.
More about Eugene Macki
Eugene Macki is a visual artist who lives and works in both the UK and the United States. His oeuvre includes a range of media and techniques, such as installation, sculpture, land art, experimental video, performance, and collaborative practice.
Macki is a member and Trustee of the Royal Society of Sculptors (EST 1905, UK) and on the Board of AA2A as a Non-Executive Director. AA2A (EST 1999, UK) delivers an artist residency programme with professional practice development at art and design institutions across England. Between 2012 and 2014, Macki and Barbara Tong founded Void Art Gallery in London. Macki founded Moon Spring in 2019-2022, and launched Peut Guard in 2023 (a project that consists of an artist award, research retreat, curatorial program, and exhibition). His artwork has been displayed in museums, galleries, and outdoor spaces.
More about Lydia Newman
Lydia Newman is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses painting, sculpture, installation, live performance and creative workshop facilitation. With a background in drama and performance making, her work is deeply interconnected, with each discipline bleeding into the others – images from live performances often appear in paintings, while the forms and themes in paintings inform the shapes and concepts in performances. Newman won the second prize of East London Art Prize 2025.
Newman completed an MA in Performance Making at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2021, having previously studied Drama at Queen Mary, University of London. Between these programmes, she focused on creative facilitation, delivering self-development programmes grounded in creative practice to communities in the UK and internationally within the charity and NGO sector. Recent performances and exhibitions include Coercive Contortion, The TATE INSTITUTE (2024); The Renovation Revisited, All Hail Disordia, The Anatomy Theatre, Summerhall (2023); Tangled Series, Gallery 32, Barcelona (2023); A Primal Scream, Black Discourse, as part of online exhibition The Body is My First Mother (2021) and site-specific audio journey The Multi-story Time Park, Ilford Shopping Centre (2021). Newman was also a performer in Lygia Clark’s Corpo Coletivo & Elastic Net, Whitechapel Gallery (2024).
More about Yang Zou
Yang Zou is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across film, installation and photography. His work particularly addresses ‘soft power’ – how political narratives are deployed through cultural production by the state to communicate certain principles and aspirations. Combining a purely observational style with poetic elements that focus on people’s emotions, his work is concerned with the misunderstandings between humans and machines as well as the collective anxieties that arise from societal shifts.
Zou worked as a cultural journalist in China for many years before studying in the UK. He holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art and has been selected as one of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2024.
More about Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery is a ground-breaking arts institution located in the heart of London’s East-End – one of the most diverse and creative quarters in the world. Locally embedded and globally connected, the Gallery was founded in 1901 to enrich the cultural offer for the people of East London.
Over the years, Whitechapel Gallery has played host to some of the world’s most significant and visionary artists, showcasing art from across the globe, including China, Brazil and the Islamic world. Whitechapel Gallery is equally committed to supporting local artists and communities, many of whom come from, or reflect, the many migrants that have made Whitechapel and its surrounding areas their home.
Whitechapel Gallery’s Participation and Outreach programmes prioritise local communities, offering artist-led activities for all ages that encourage curiosity, learning and exchange. Whitechapel Gallery believes that art plays a critical role in firing imaginations, reflecting lived experiences, and opening up new possibilities for thinking, feeling and dreaming.
Access information
Please find the access information of Whitechapel Gallery here.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email info@whitechapelgallery.org or call 020 7522 7888.
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a seat near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
About the East London Art Prize Events Programme
The East London Art Prize Events Programme is a dynamic, free public programme open to all, which builds on the Prize’s ethos of providing ongoing support, development, and networking opportunities for artists in east London and beyond.
Featuring a constellation of workshops, talks, panels, lates, socials, labs, walks, and takeovers in collaboration with our Prize partners and featuring some familiar faces from our shortlist of 12 fantastic artists, this year’s events programme celebrates and pays homage to the huge abundance of talent and creativity nestled in east London.
These events have been developed by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts in collaboration with our Prize partners the British Council, The Line, London College of Fashion (LCF), London Legacy Development Corporation, University College London (UCL), V&A East, Whitechapel Gallery and Dulux.
Find out more about the wider programme here.
More about the East London Art Prize
The East London Art Prize is an all-media art prize designed to showcase the talent of artists working and living in east London, with an accompanying event programme supporting artists’ careers and opportunities. The Prize is generously funded by Minerva and Prue MacLeod. Find out more on the Prize webpage here.
