All That's Been Given, an exhibition for International Women's Day

This International Women’s Day, Sarabande alum Jennifer Jones brings together eight female- identifying artists to consider the idea of inheritance. All That’s Been Given expands the conventional understanding of inheritance beyond the transmission of wealth or possessions, instead approaching it as a complex network of cultural memory, identity, lineage and lived experience.

Across photography, painting, sculpture and performance, the exhibition reflects on how we carry the imprint of those who came before us. Each work approaches inheritance differently – emotional, spiritual, social or material – revealing how histories move through bodies, objects and landscapes long after their origins.

The exhibition opened with a lively private view, during which artist Bisilia Noha set the gallery space in motion with a live installation of poetry. Noha wrote directly onto the gallery wall, her words emerging alongside the artworks as guests moved through the space.

Noha’s practice centres storytelling and the often-overlooked contributions of women of colour to artistic histories, explores inheritance as an act of acknowledgment, examining the importance of foregrounding those we are influenced by and asking what it means to recognise creative lineage.

Painter Antonia Caicedo Holguín examines how personal and cultural histories shape our relationships to space and to one another. She interprets inheritance through her depiction of dance. The title of her painting ‘Pollinating’ refers to how art, like dancing or painting, spreads energy and ideas, influencing and inspiring others the way pollen spreads life.

Sculptor Ella Lynch, known for her playful use of found objects and imagery drawn from British high street culture, reflects on the community of women who raised her. She looks at how identity is shaped collectively and how values and behaviours are transmitted. For this exhibition, she turns to a personal reference point: a relation’s ‘tramp stamp’ tattoo, which she has transformed into a cherubic-style sculptural cast – reworking a familiar and often stigmatised symbol into something both affectionate and absurd.

Themes of genetics and bodily forms run through the photographic work of Paloma Tendero, whose interpretation of inheritance focuses on how biological and physical traits connect individuals across generations.

In intricate ink and charcoal drawings, Rizza Zahid constructs psychologically charged scenes that blur everyday experience with surreal narrative. Zahid draws upon South Asian community folklore and urban legends from the Midlands, exploring how inherited stories and informal rituals shape behaviour, space and perception across generations.

Multidisciplinary artist and curator Siphiwe Mnguni celebrates the Black female figure and themes of identity, womanhood, community, and perception. Through abstract figuration, her work highlights diverse figures, prompting viewers to consider the bodies and identities we inherit and their places in contemporary culture.

A delicate, suspended sculpture by Sophie Mei Birkin introduces another material dimension to the exhibition. Working with salt as both a preservative and corrosive material, Birkin uses process to question what is materially sustained or lost over time.

Completing the exhibition is multidisciplinary artist Victoria Ruiz, who interprets inheritance as place and culture, tracing how belief systems and communal identities are passed down by family and community. Her vibrant wearable sculptures and images draw on carnivalesque traditions, transforming personal and cultural narratives into gestures of resilience and celebration.

All That’s Been Given explores the many ways we inherit – not just physical objects but stories, gestures, traditions and possibilities. In tracing connections between generations, the artists suggest that to inherit is also to participate, embody, question and transform.

On view during the week of International Women’s Day, the exhibition foregrounds the vital role of women’s voices within these lineages, highlighting how inheritance is carried forward, shared and reimagined by a new generation of artists.