Philosopher Achille Mbembe’s proposals for the survival of all life continue to inspire The Showroom’s programme into 2027. Building on the Restore 2024-26 vision, we present our current programme, Re-member/Re-assemble. 

The exhibitions and events are conceived as invitations to embrace the potential of the imagination in collective world-building, echoing Mbembe’s call to redeem utopia’s capabilities in pursuit of a new planetary consciousness. In light of an increasingly violent geopolitical environment, we recall Franz Fanon’s reference to breathing as a central metaphor underpinning his psychiatric approach to healing colonial wounds: ‘Revolting because we can’t breathe’. While invoking echoes of the BLM movement, nowadays this metaphor applies to multiple sites and human groups due to the expanded legalised violence against civilians. Drawing from these ideas, our 2026-27 programme articulates a desire for a new humanism – predicated on the right to live, breathe, and blossom, – cultivated through the exceptional perspectives of the invited artists. 

Following Ângela Ferreira’s Spring exhibition Slits are Girls, Harold Offeh leads the Summer programme with an immersive exhibition at The Showroom coinciding with his Paddington Square x The Showroom billboard commission, Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Walks. 

In the Autumn, Bahar Noorizadeh works with The Showroom’s interior and exterior spaces to present two interacting projects that critique capitalist economies and propose radical speculative futures.

The Winter programme presents Radical Literacy, an exhibition by Claudia Fontes continuing her exploration into unknown, nonhuman language based on her research of the fatal destiny of rainforest plant specimens due to the planned dismantling of the Palm House at Kew Gardens.

Spring 2026

Exhibition
Ângela Ferreira: Slits are Girls
Until 7 June 2026
Blending music and architecture with resistance movements across the UK and South Africa, the exhibition and programme present a sculpture and photography installation that nests sound works and public programmes. With an opening performance by Dubmorphology and an audiovisual intervention by Black Industrial Research Group throughout the exhibition, The Showroom presents a unique perspective on punk rebellion in celebration of its 50th anniversary. Curated by Andrew Renton.

Summer 2026

For our summer programme, artist Harold Offeh presents two interconnected projects.

At The Showroom
Exhibition
Harold Offeh: Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Aliens
26 June –22 August 2026

Harold Offeh presents an exhibition in dialogue with his Paddington Square x The Showroom billboard commission, drawing on key themes of estrangement and alienation recurrent in his practice. Taking inspiration from African-American novelist James Baldwin’s essay Stranger in the Village, along with the motif and symbolism of the Alien, Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Aliens presents works spanning his 25-year career, including some yet to be exhibited in London.

Offsite
Paddington Square x The Showroom
Harold Offeh: Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Walks
July 2026 – July 2027

Created in collaboration with young people through workshops at The Showroom, Offeh’s new commission is indicative of our long-standing commitment to working with young people and community groups in our neighbourhood and beyond. This annual cycle has been commissioned by Great Western Developments Ltd and is curated by LACUNA as part of the wider Paddington Square Public Art Programme.

Autumn 2026

For our Autumn season, artist Bahar Noorizadeh will work with The Showroom’s interior and exterior spaces to present two radical, interacting projects that envision possible futures.

Exhibition
Bahar Noorizadeh
25 September – 12 December 2026

For her first solo exhibition in London, Iranian-Canadian artist Bahar Noorizadeh reflects on global economies and the moral, social, and organisational technologies that shape them. Positioning the media as an agent of a propositional future – one in which the prevailing powers that be are reconstructed through simulation and gamification – Noorizadeh continues her examination of the infrastructures of capitalism and the potential of collective learning in the formulation of alternative futures.

This exhibition builds on Noorizadeh’s larger project, The Debtor’s Portal, exhibited at Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee in 2026, co-curated by Cooper Gallery and The Otolith Collective.

The Showroom Mural Commission 2026-27
Bahar Noorizadeh
25 September 2026 – 14 August 2027 

In collaboration with local communities, Noorizadeh will address the impact of gentrification within The Showroom’s neighbourhood. Approaching this through a socio-historical lens, the artist will draw from the history of the Paddington Green police station, which was decommissioned in 2018 and has since been developed into luxury apartments. For the 2026-27 Mural Commission, the artist reflects on the liminal space between prison complex and high-end real estate to explore the architectures of UK policing, zoning, and gentrification, and their entanglement with the capitalisation of urban life.

Winter/Spring 2027

Exhibition
Claudia Fontes: Radical Literacy
29 January – 8 May 2027

In Radical Literacy, Claudia Fontes will work with the roots of ruderal plants – species that grow on waste ground or rubbish – which escaped Kew Gardens after being introduced to England as exotic plants during the Imperial Era. These plants proliferated in London after World War II, and were extremely successful in restoring soil in disturbed bomb sites, as well as being used to feed people in war-torn areas.

Fontes will search for evidence of a peculiar alphabet written by the proximity of roots from different specimens – for shapes that might recall letters or ideograms of an unknown nonhuman language – in an attempt to decipher lessons to be learnt by humans before extinction. Radical Literacy will be the artist’s first solo show in a UK institution.