BEN BROOME

For Rooms Of Neighbours Josiane M.H Pozi (@j0sianep0zi ) worked with Yvette Francis on a series of drawings that represent the connections each of them have with the people that they love. Their drawings - made over a three week period - are a chart of conversations and connections with loved ones. Each mark or drawing represents a call to a friend or a visit to a family member. There was no prearranged agreement regarding the forms marks would take. Pozi’s calendar of care played out on a single piece of paper with each connection represented by an abstract mark. Francis’ marks are more pictorial: a call might be marked by a drawing of a dove or a love heart and her sketches spilled out across fifteen sheets of paper. Some drawings are by her niece who, copying her Aunty, drew her own doves. Josiane and Yvette will be speaking about their collaboration @southlondongallery on May 20th. DM me for guest list.

For Rooms of Neighbours, Racheal Crowther (@rachealcrowther ) made two works for Raluca’s house on Clifton Crescent.  Apis mellifera (2026) continues her research into olfactory-mediated behaviours. The piece introduces each day through a scent developed in collaboration with Raluca: Racheal combined solvent-extracted honeycomb with isopropyl myristate to produce a honeyed perfume released each morning by a timed spray dispenser. The second work, Sound Princess, 2026, uses a motion activated speaker made from a repurposed Sound Princess (a Japanese device used to cover any potentially embarrassing toilet sounds) to play calming sounds for Frank, Raluca’s cat, at 528Hz, a frequency said to help with stress. Pictured: Sound Princess, 2026 Motion detected device for bathroom 528Hz frequencies (sounds for Frank - Raluca’s cat) Apis Mellifera, 2026 Solvent-extracted honeycomb, Isopropyl Myristate Timed scent dispenser

ESSAIS is pleased to present Preconditions, a solo exhibition by Zazou Roddam, curated by Ben Broome Zazou Roddam, Preconditions May 7, 2026 – June 6, 2026 Opening reception: Thursday May 7, 6–9 PM Zazou Roddam (b. 2000, London) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: Sunset Strip, Further Down The Line, Liverpool (2026), BedRock, Casa Flash Art, Otsuni (2025), GMT, Hot Wheels Athens, Athens (2025), Great Works, Galerie Oskar Weiss, Zürich (2025), Does Anyone Still Wear a Hat?, Hans Goodrich, Chicago (2024), pretend it’s a city, Chess Club, Hamburg (2024), Pop Inflection, Brunette Coleman, London (2023), 126 Eldridge Street, New York (2023). Email us at [email protected] if you would like more informations or to book an appointment. ESSAIS 57 Boulevard de la Villette, 75010, Paris Access: 3526 then ring Essais Thank you @brunette_coleman

For Isabella Costabile’s (@i_c0st4bi ) contribution to Rooms Of Neighbours - a group exhibition and social project unfolding across 12 homes on Clifton Crescent, Peckham - the artist worked with neighbours Zoe and Tom to install a sculpture in their front garden. Visible from the street, Isabella’s sculpture, titled “Living day and night” is constructed from materials discarded on the streets of Grosseto, Italy, integrated with materials found on or nearby Clifton Crescent. The objects Isabella employed for the work - clothes pegs, a broken drying rack, an ice cream shop’s sign, empty tomato tins - are detritus from everyday life and reflect the domestic context in which the work exists. For the past 9 months her sculpture has been exposed to nature and the elements: metal has rusted and weeds have grown through and around it. Join Isabella, Zoe and I for an artist talk on April 30th @gasworkslondon , reflecting on the process of making work for a domestic setting, the dynamics of collaboration, and what it means to live with an artwork. Photography by: @jorge_stride & @jayizzard

Announcing Rooms of Neighbours: a winding and unconventional group exhibition that I’ve been working on for the past two years. The exhibition takes place across 12 homes on the street where I live: Clifton Crescent, Queens Road Peckham. Each household was paired with an artist who worked with residents to install a work in their home, garden, or communal space. Rooms of Neighbours features: Liz Johnson Artur, Isabella Costabile, Racheal Crowther, Liam Gillick, Ben Kinmont, Raheel Khan, Ghislaine Leung, Olukemi Lijadu, Jasper Marsalis, Marietta Mavrokordatou, Nina Porter, Josiane M.H. Pozi, Jessi Reaves, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Pictured: Ghislaine Leung, Care, 2024. Installed in the home of Toni & Tom, Clifton Crescent. The wall is equivalent to all the days in a year. The 2016 child care hours the artist would need to cover working full time are shown as a banana rectangle. The 1140 free childcare hours supported by the UK government are shown inset as a cobalt square. Edition of 3 + 2 AP. Thanks to Cabinet Gallery. Photos by @jorge_stride

Such a privilege working with Ladji Diaby (@ladji777diaby ) to curate his exceptional exhibition ‘Who’s Gonna Save the World’ at Lafayette Anticipations (@lafayetteanticipations ). Grateful to @rebeccalamarchevadel for the invitation and trust, the incredible team at Lafayette for their unwavering support and @clement_delepine for his commitment and zeal in his new role as director of Lafayette Anticipations. “Diaby uses these objects - many bearing the hallmarks of historical styles and trends now out of fashion - as vitrines for discarded (and now re-found) items from the lives of others. He considers each work a collaboration between himself and an object’s unknown former owner. While these artifacts carry no inherent material value, within an art space they are perceived differently. Through this act of exhibition, the artist interrogates the systems through which cultural value is determined in the West.”

Nihaal Faizal’s (video art) On view at C.A.V.E until April 11th. 128 Dupont St, Brooklyn, NY. Thursday - Saturday, 7:00 - 9:00 PM “Both the playlist as an artwork and the individual videos it comprises are motivated by fandom. Faizal’s own fandom for these artists was the catalyst for initiating the playlist and a kindred fandom prompted these mostly anonymous disciples to film and upload their clips. The order of the videos in (video art) is not curated and instead is organised only in the order Faizal added them.“ @nihaal_faizal @c.a.v.e

Honoured to be working again with @nihaal_faizal to exhibit his work ‘(video art)’ with dear friends @c.a.v.e Nihaal Faizal’s (video art), 2016 - ongoing, is a public YouTube playlist collating informal and self-shot documentation of seminal video art installation globally. Now with over 200 videos, the playlist serves as both an archive of Faizal’s internet wanderings and an educative resource for those unable to access these works in their exhibition contexts. Conceived by the artist while studying in Bangalore, (video art) is shown here in proximity to many of the institutions and galleries featured in the playlist. Yet, installed in the storefront window of a residential Greenpoint neighbourhood, the work still occupies a geographical and aesthetic margin compared to these institutional contexts. The breakdown of image quality, symptomatic of the re-recording and bootlegging of these seminal video works, is further compounded when split across two screens and viewed from the street through laminated glass. Please join us for the public opening of (video art) on Saturday March 7 from 7:00-9:00 PM. The show will remain open during the same time, every Thursday through Saturday until April 11. Presented by C.A.V.E @c.a.v.e Curated by Ben Broome @drabl 128 Dupont St. Brooklyn, NY

Who’s Gonna Save The World? 🌍 Pour son exposition à Lafayette Anticipations, Ladji Diaby compose une installation faite de vestiges : fragments intimes, reliques de rituels, objets liés à une pratique spirituelle, traces de pop culture et objets trouvés. Issus de sa maison familiale à Ivry-sur-Seine ou récupérés d’autres vies, ces artefacts guident son processus de création. L’artiste les traite avec révérence, laissant la matière ouvrir des récits qui dépassent toute identité assignée. Inspirée par l’anthropocène et la question « Who’s Gonna Save the World ? » faisant référence au titre d’un album du group de funk et de soul Father’s Children, son œuvre envisage la chute non comme une fin, mais comme un point de départ. Un portail vers d’autres mondes possibles - politiques, spirituels, imaginaires. - Who’s Gonna Save The World? 🌍 For his exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations, Ladji Diaby has created an installation made up of relics: personal fragments, ritual artefacts, objects linked to spiritual practices, traces of pop culture and found objects. Sourced from his family home in Ivry-sur-Seine or salvaged from other lives, these artefacts guide his creative process. The artist treats them with reverence, allowing the material to open up narratives that transcend any assigned identity. Inspired by the Anthropocene and the question ‘Who’s Gonna Save the World?’, referring to the title of an album by the funk and soul group Father’s Children, his work envisions the fall not as an end, but as a starting point. A portal to other possible worlds - political, spiritual, imaginary. 📌 Exposition Ladji Diaby du 1er avril au 19 juillet 2026 (1.04.26 - 19.07.26) ℹ️ Entrée libre · Free entrance 💡Curator : Ben Broome (@drabl ) 🔗 Plus d’infos dans le lien en bio · more info in the bio 🖌️ Identité visuelle @aletheia.works 🤝 Avec @liberationfr @lesinrocks @telerama ___________________⁣⁣ #LafayetteAnticipations #ContemporaryArt #LadjiDiaby

These engravings by Cyprien Gaillard have been installed for a while, living inconspicuously in their subterranean home: a functioning public toilet in London. I’m happy to finally share: “Cyprien Gaillard’s interventions - engraved into brass finger plates of the men’s & women’s toilet cubicles - are untitled. They exist amongst the scrawlings of others, not as individual named artworks, but as the artist’s own contribution to the scribbled discourses. Gaillard borrows from German master Albrecht Durer (1471 - 1528) for his own mark making, focusing on motifs that characterise Durer’s obsession with the inevitability of death and the march of time in an unjust hierarchical society. A bagpipe playing jester - from the Durer illustrated Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant - adorns the panel facing the entrance. Inside the cubicle, on the verso, Alice - from the 1951 Disney movie - pulls (or pushes) at the door to her Wonderland. A locked cubicle of a public toilet is the most private of public spaces…our own personal wonderland for that moment of use. Here, you might find yourself half naked, often alone, or if not, vulnerable to another. These subterranean refuges are places of solitude to check in with oneself - or perhaps with someone else - amidst a city that is the most surveilled in the world.” Gaillard’s installation has been made possible with generous support from @fluxus_art_projects Engraving by @john_cook_engraving Photography by @jorge_stride & @jayizzard Commissioned by Camden Council DM me for the precise location.

Documentation from the Crystal Palace Park bandstand performance a few weeks ago with #Klein @waitareyoutwins & @irl4ngel . The last beautiful day of the year. Photos by @stuartnimmo_ & video by @kemkemlij Big thanks to @stoneisland for their generous support of this series

Grateful to @olibasciano for his thorough piece on the Artist Membership Project for @guardian . His reaching out to @barbicancentre for comment prompted them to reinstate the memberships (which had been cancelled due to overuse) and I’m now working with The Barbican to develop a subsidised membership programme for artists. My hope is that all of London’s institutions will follow suit. Thank you to the now 700 members who continue to use and maintain the project as well as the founding members whose donations made it possible: @asquire.ltd , @adamtrampstamp , @brunette_coleman , @ginnyonfrederick , @herald_st , @hot_wheels_ath_ldn , @jackbellami , @jayizzard , @nicwermers , @roseeaston223 , @simonmparris , @selvimayz