Kadeem Oak

@somersethousestudios portrait by @350jam

Opening this weekend | Where We Meet Land at @fruitmarketgallery a group exhibition featuring Pressed Flowers of the Empire (2025) a work made in collaboration with Jonn Gale @balkanjonn Where we meet land: environment and ecology in artists’ moving image  07.03.26–22.03.26 Where we meet land is an exhibition of artists’ moving image works that are concerned with where humans meet the natural environment – how we manage it, commune with it, play in it, map and record it, mould it to our shape and use, both historically and now; and in turn how it can engulf us, and haunt us. As much as they speak of the damage we have done to the land, and the ways we have sought to possess it, the selected films are also about the communities that respect and care for it, telling hopeful stories about our future relationship with our planet. The selection prioritises recent work by Scottish artists, aiming to give early to mid-career artists an opportunity to show work that has not been seen extensively elsewhere, placing it alongside moving image works by artists from elsewhere in the UK.  In this selection, each work is seen in the context of the others, drawing out connections between them through the lens of care, kinship and community.   Films vary in length from around 5 minutes to around 30 minutes, with a total running time of c.130-40 mins. They will be shown on a single screen all day (11am–6pm) with each film having 3 screenings per day. Fergus Carmichael @ferguscarmichael Olivia Priya Foster @priiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Onyeka Igwe @memoriesofabiglife Rachel McBrinn & Alison Scott @rachel_mcbrinn @alisonjessicascott Helen McCrorie @helenmccrorie Kadeem Oak & Jonn Gale @kadeemoak  @balkanjonn Hanna Tuulikki @hanna_tuulikki

Screening: Pressed Flowers of the Empire (2025) at South London Gallery this evening as part of South by South: What Grows Between | a moving image programme curated by @kimia.collective in response to SLG’s current exhibition by Yto Barrada. @kimia.collective >>>“What Grows Between”, a small artists’ film programme we put together in response to @ytobarrada ’s exhibition Thrill, Fill, and Spill, currently showing at the South London Gallery. The programme sits in dialogue with her ongoing explorations of botanical histories and colonial legacies. Featuring films by @yasmina_benabderrahmane , @theos_perspective , @nouayda , @kadeemoak and @balkanjonn , these works retrace acts of care, remembrance, and radical storytelling. Some reclaim found footage or re-examine botanical archives, whilst others attend to intimate gestures, rituals, or unfamiliar species quietly growing in unexpected places. Together, these films ask: what do we cultivate in our gardens, of memory, of ritual, of life itself? Which roots do we inherit, and which do we carry forward? South London Gallery → Wed 3 Dec 2025, 6.30–8.30pm Ticket link in bio ________ programmed supported by @southlondongallery and @arabbritishcentre Image Credits: Kadeem Oak & Jonn Gale, Pressed Flowers of the Empire, 2025 (12 min) Nour Ouayda, The Secret Garden, 2023 (27 min) Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Le Bouquet, 2022 (2 min) Theo Panagopoulos, The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, 2024 (17 min)

Toward The Forest | Screening and Fundraiser at FormaHQ @formaartsmedia with films by Kadeem Oak, Dan Guthrie, Hope Strickland and James Jordan Johnson. Tickets £11.50 (link in bio) | 7pm-10pm Thursday 27 November FormaHQ Join us for a special fundraiser event in support of Jamaica’s recent hurricane devastation. Presented by FormaHQ resident, James Jordan Johnson. All proceeds will be donated to Jacana Relief Fund and Trans Wave Jamaica. @formaartsmedia @danglefree @gloriousmuttley @jamesjordanjohnson @kadeemoak Still: Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash! , Kadeem Oak, 2022 🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲

This Thursday 24.07 I’ll be screening work as part of @weathergirl.5 x Cittipunkt @cittipunkt at Avalon Cafe. The video ‘English Flower Beds’ is a new short WIP continuation of my ongoing project exploring the colonial legacies of Britain’s botanical gardens. @weathergirl.5 is a London based screening series in which artists are invited to produce a new work in a short space of time made specifically for the screening, focused on funny, sad and perverse artists’ moving image organised by @waterpancake91 Bronte Dow and Freya Field-Donovan @freya.field.donovan This will be followed by a second screening at Cittipunkt in Berlin on 02.08 organised by Sophie Lee @sophie.ff.lee Come down!

In Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash!, Kadeem Oak follows the River Effra through Brixton and beyond—mapping its submerged currents alongside the sonic and cultural legacies of Caribbean communities that once gathered along its path. Combining digital video, archival images, dub/reggae Space Echo interpolated field recordings, maps, etchings and echoes of protest, the film explores themes of industry, community, landscape and memory, in the wake of urban change. Oak is a London-based artist and filmmaker whose practice weaves together storytelling, ecology, and experimental documentary. Grounded in his Afro-Caribbean heritage and shaped by a Sheffield upbringing, his work explores vernacular histories and Black British identity through moving image, sound, and installation. Oak is currently a resident artist at Somerset House Studios London, recent screenings of his work include Pressed Flowers of the Empire, Somerset House; Cubitt Gallery, ICA London and Birkbeck Institute of Moving Image. Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash! screens alongside seven other films by emerging artists tomorrow evening at Spike Island in Bristol from 6-7pm. Tickets are still available to book at the link on our highlight reel or on our website! Catch you there 🎟🌠 #KadeemOak #EffraCreek #Selected15 #ArtistsFilm #BlackBritishArt #CaribbeanDiaspora #UrbanEcology #VideoArt #MovingImage #DubCulture #ExperimentalFilm #MemoryAndPlace #videoclub #FLAMIN #JarmanAward

Screening today at @somersethouse : Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash! as part of the Selected 15 @videoclub_uk @film_london touring UK artist’s moving image programme Somerset House The Pits, 14 June, 2-7pm free entry

My film Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash! will be screening across the summer as part of Selected 15, a national tour and bold new programme of short films nominated by the 2024 Jarman Award shortlisted artists for @videoclub_uk @film_london Premiering next week at Fabrica, Brighton @fabricabrighton on the 5th June and then onto Glasgow CCA @cca_glasgow , Somerset House London @somersethouse , Nottingham Contemporary @nottm_contemp and Towner Eastbourne @townergallery , CAST @castcornwall , Spike Island @spikeisland Effra Creek! Effra Wash! Effra Splash! reflects upon the River Effra, a lost tributary of the River Thames. The project examines the cultural and sonic ecology of the river’s course as it runs from Norwood, through Brixton and Vauxhall; exploring Afro-Caribbean histories and themes of industry, community, landscape and memory. Commissioned by @icalondon in 2022 The Selected 15 programme includes work by: @cinesamara , @ferguscarmichael , @teefvideos , @niafekrix , @niki.kohandel , @princessjazmin_art , @kadeemoak , and @_liberty_smith_ Produced and curated by videoclub and @film_london Artists’ Moving Image Network. Supported by @aceagrams #Selected15 #ArtistsFilm #MovingImage #videoclub #FLAMIN #JarmanAward #FabricaBrighton #BrightonEvents #ArtFilm #IndependentCinema

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working with artist filmmaker legend Alia Syed to help edit a series films for her exhibition The Ring in the Fish which is showing now at @cca_glasgow go see it! ~ Alia Syed’s The Ring in the Fish is a lyrical meditation on memory, myth, and migration. Drawing on the legend of St. Mungo and the miracle of the ring in the fish, the title becomes a portal through which individual and collective histories are reimagined. Filmed in Glasgow, the work is rooted in conversations with members of the South Asian community, spanning generations. ::: Image courtesy of the artist. Image description: A close up of a stone gargoyle’s face.