OSMAN YOUSEFZADA

This April, Bolanle Contemporary presents Osman Yousefzada: A Home That Will Not Behave, a solo exhibition at No.9 Cork Street, London. Bringing together a new body of work across painting, textile and mixed media, @osmanstudio considers the home as a charged and unstable site shaped by intimacy, memory and bodily presence. Drawing on the figure of the jinn within Islamic and South Asian cosmologies, Yousefzada approaches the domestic interior as a space animated by unseen forces, emotional residue and latent desire. Across the works, bodies dissolve into interiors and interiors take on bodily form. Pattern operates as ornament and code while fabric becomes archive. The domestic space appears porous and responsive, carrying memory, secrecy and transformation within its structure. Osman Yousefzada A Home That Will Not Behave 10 April – 26 April 2026 No.9 Cork Street, London Preview 9 April RSVP via the link in bio Photo: @jumi___p @osmanstudio @friezeofficial #no9corkstreet

Now on view with Bolanle Contemporary, A Home That Will Not Behave, a solo exhibition by Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ) at No.9 Cork Street. The exhibition coincides with the announcement of Yousefzada’s inclusion in British Art Show 10, curated by Ekow Eshun and presented nationally by Hayward Gallery Touring. Developed across 2025-2026, the works extend Yousefzada’s acclaimed practice through painting, textile, collage and mark making. Rooted in personal history yet expansive in scope, the exhibition considers the home as a site of intimacy, tension, ritual and transformation, while engaging wider questions of migration, queer identity and inherited cultural memory. On view until 25 April Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-6pm - Pictured: Three Pillows, 2025-26. Oil and acrylic pigment, fibre, collaged on canvas, 240 × 140 cm. Cactus Shade, 2025-26. Oil and acrylic pigment, fibre, polyethene, collaged on canvas, 250 × 140 cm. Olympia, 2025-26. Oil and acrylic pigment, fibre, polyethene, collaged on canvas, 170 × 150 cm. Documentation: Rita Silva. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary.

A Home That Will Not Behave is a new exhibition by Tutor, Writer and PhD Researcher @rca_soah_research , Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ) at No.9 Cork Street until 25 April. Presented by @bolanlecontemporary . Developed between 2025 and 2026, this new body of work examines domestic space as a site of presence, intimacy and transformation. The works draw on the figure of the jinn, understood within Islamic and South Asian cosmologies as beings that exist alongside the human world. For Yousefzada, the home is never neutral. It is shaped by migration, silence, protection and control. Bolanle Contemporary, No.9 Cork Street, London, 2026. Documentation: Rita Silva. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary. #Art #London #Artist

Osman Yousefzada discusses the presence of the jinn within the home, and how unseen forces, memory and inherited belief systems shape the atmosphere of domestic space in A Home That Will Not Behave. In this short film, he reflects on how these intangible presences move through the work, where painting, sound and installation come together to consider what a home holds, conceals and refuses. For more information about available works, please email [email protected] Video: @theinventiveuk Photo: @jumi___p

Final two days remain to visit A Home That Will Not Behave, a solo exhibition by Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ) with Bolanle Contemporary at No.9 Cork Street (@friezeofficial ) This exhibition gathers new work that finds drama in the domestic, in rooms, fabrics and layered surfaces that hold something back even as they invite you in. The artist moves between painting, textile and collage to sit with contradictions that don’t resolve neatly: the home as refuge and trap, queerness as lived reality and quiet defiance, the jinn as a figure for everything inherited and unspoken, the stories families carry but don’t quite tell, and the ‘Orient’ as a received image worth pulling apart and rebuilding on different terms. Taken together the works ask what it means to make a home in spaces and traditions that were never entirely yours to begin with. To receive a preview of available works or to read the commissioned essay by Dominic Johnson written on the occasion of the exhibition please email [email protected] On view until Saturday 25 April. Opening hours: Friday: 10am-6pm Saturday: 10am-6pm - Prayer Hats and Sofa, 2025–26. Documentation: Rita Silva. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary.

‘Osman Yousefzada: A Home That Will Not Behave,’ presented by Bolanle Contemporary, is on view at Frieze No.9 Cork Street until 25 April. Marking Bolanle Contemporary’s first exhibition at No.9 Cork Street, the presentation brings together a new body of work by Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ) that considers the home as a site of tension, memory and embodied experience. Drawing on the figure of the Jinn, understood within Islamic and South Asian cosmologies as a being that exists alongside the human world, Yousefzada approaches domestic interiors as spaces charged with unseen presence. 📍 Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London W1S 3LL Documentation: Rita Silva. Courtesy of the artist and @bolanlecontemporary

Thank you to everyone who has visited A Home That Will Not Behave by Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ) so far at No.9 Cork Street. We have been so grateful for the warmth, conversations and thoughtful engagement with this powerful new body of work. It has meant a great deal to see so many people spend time with the exhibition. A special thank you as well to everyone who joined our in conversation with Ekow Eshun (@ekoweshun ) It was a memorable afternoon of insight, generosity and exchange. We are also excited to be sharing a special new essay by Dominic Johnson (@dominicjohnson ). Join our mailing list to receive it first. The show reopens tomorrow and continues until 25 April. Late night openings this week: Tuesday 10am to 8pm Thursday 10am to 8pm All other days: 10am to 6pm We look forward to welcoming many more of you. - Exhibition view: Osman Yousefzada, A Home That Will Not Behave, Bolanle Contemporary, No.9 Cork Street, London, 2026. Documentation: Rita Silva. Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary.

In Conversation: Osman Yousefzada and Ekow Eshun Saturday 18 April 2026, 2pm No.9 Cork Street Join us for a public conversation presented by Bolanle Contemporary in conjunction with A Home That Will Not Behave. Bringing together artist Osman Yousefzada and curator, writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun, the discussion will explore storytelling as method, representations of the body and the shifting conditions of contemporary culture. Ekow Eshun is curator of the forthcoming British Art Show and former Chairman of the Fourth Plinth. His curatorial projects include In the Black Fantastic and The Time Is Always Now. Free to attend link in @bolanlecontemporary bio to register

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the opening of A Home That Will Not Behave. Today, Saturday 11 April, we are pleased to continue the programme today with a screening of Osman Yousefzada, Spaces of Transcendence (2022). Filmed across sites of ritual in Pakistan, the work explores environments, characters and gestures through a coded visual language in which marginalised voices are centred and affirmed. Commissioned and previously presented by Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Ikon Gallery, it is presented by Bolanle Contemporary at No.9 Cork Street and screening on a continuous loop today from 10am–6pm.

Looking forward to and hoping to see you later today.. with lunch at 1pm… details below SYMPOSIUM: Intimacies & Tyrannies: The Colonial Topographies of the Internet, 9 January 2026. https://jhg.art/events/intimacies-tyrannies-the-colonial-topographies-of-the-internet/ Presented at John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, in partnership with The Box, Plymouth, as a collaboration between two coastal cities and a sharing of knowledge, supported by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. “A solidarity” curated by artist and writer Osman Yousefzada, co-convened with Prof Tom Trevor (University of Exeter). 2-5.30pm, MAST, Studio 2, John Hansard Gallery Provocation: Osman Yousefzada Keynote: Prof Omar Kholeif (Glasgow School of Art) Panelists: Dr Syed Mustafa Ali (Open University); Prof Louise Siddons (University of Southampton); Prof Wolfgang Suetzl (Ohio University); Dr Yaiza Hernandez Velazquez (University of Southampton); Dr Jaya Brekke (NYMtech); Prof Alexandra Anikina (University of Southampton); Prof Dina Lupin (University of Southampton); Prof Stephanie Jones (University of Southampton); Prof Tom Trevor (University of Exeter). Images: Osman Yousefzada, When Will We Be Good Enough, 2024, installation at The Box, Plymouth, photographed by Dom Moore

"With the certainty of tides, still I rise" is a powerful exhibition currently at John Hansard Gallery amplifying underrepresented voices confronting dominant discourses featuring works by Firelei Báez, Shiraz Bayjoo, Jane Jin Kaisen and Osman Yousefzada. Prominently positioned in the space, the sound of ‘Mother’ (2025) resonates with the movement of water. Sculpted from an 18th-century Italian praying desk. This domestic furniture is reimagined as a symbolic maternal body. For Yousefzada, the desk evokes a powerful sense of maternal life force. And the site also opens up stories of migrant women in the UK whose contributions remain under-recognised. Osman Yousefzada is an artist, writer, tutor and PhD researcher @rcasoah . Yousefzada is a storyteller, artist and poet whose practice weaves together objects and words to explore narratives that are at once autobiographical and metaphorical. His work often brings contemporary sculpture into dialogue with familial artefacts and archival collections. Influenced by his upbringing in Birmingham’s Pakistani diaspora communities, Yousefzada’s practice draws on lived experience, blending myth, ritual, and folklore to examine collective memory and cultural narratives. #Art #Artist #InstallationArt

EVENT ALERT 🚨 Presented by John Hansard Gallery and @theboxplymouth , this day symposium is a collaboration between two coastal cities and a sharing of knowledges. “A Solidarity” curated by artist and writer Osman Yousefzada, co-convened with Prof Tom Trevor (University of Exeter). To accompany our current exhibition, With the certainty of tides, still I rise, and the work of contributing artist Osman Yousefzada (@osmanstudio ), we present a half-day symposium. A gathering of thinkers, academics for conversation, food, essays and presentations, serving as a catalyst and a launching pad around the ideas inherent in artist Yousefzada’s work and his wider practice. The symposium brings together two central threads in Yousefzada’s practice: Intimacy, reflected in the deeply personal dimensions of his work and Tyranny, which engages with global narratives shaped by colonial histories. His recent exhibitions at John Hansard Gallery and The Box move between these contrasting yet interrelated themes. Drawing on those exhibitions, the symposium examines intimacy and tyranny through the broader perspectives of contemporary academic thought and artistic practice. Supported by @paulmelloncentr . FREE, link in bio to book 🔗 #OsmanYousefzada #Symposium #Art #ContemporaryArt #Exhibition #Research #KnowledgeExchange #Southampton #Plymouth #PMCsupports @tom_trevor