Powerful stories, Shared experiences
9 May 2026
We were proud to be part of The Late Shows 2026, celebrating incredible art, collaboration and heritage across the North East.
Artists Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Paul Nataraj and Ziza presented new work developed through Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues residencies in Newcastle, Amsterdam, Budapest, Lisbon, Turin and Santiago.
Over three years, the programme has supported sustained research and close collaboration with local communities, museums and archives, enabling new narratives to emerge across borders and contexts.
Rooted in the North East, their work brings forward powerful and often overlooked local stories, connecting them to wider global histories shaped by colonialism.
Together, they ask how engaging critically with the past can open pathways toward repair, responsibility and a more just future. By illuminating the enduring and far-reaching impacts of colonialism, the works reveal how many present-day global inequalities are rooted in these shared histories - and why confronting them matters now.
It was a real joy to share the work with over 100 visitors to our studios in central Newcastle. Thank you to everyone who visited, and to everyone who made it possible.
We were proud to be part of The Late Shows 2026, celebrating incredible art, collaboration and heritage across the North East.
Artists Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Paul Nataraj and Ziza presented new work developed through Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues residencies in Newcastle, Amsterdam, Budapest, Lisbon, Turin and Santiago.
Over three years, the programme has supported sustained research and close collaboration with local communities, museums and archives, enabling new narratives to emerge across borders and contexts.
Rooted in the North East, their work brings forward powerful and often overlooked local stories, connecting them to wider global histories shaped by colonialism.
Together, they ask how engaging critically with the past can open pathways toward repair, responsibility and a more just future. By illuminating the enduring and far-reaching impacts of colonialism, the works reveal how many present-day global inequalities are rooted in these shared histories - and why confronting them matters now.
It was a real joy to share the work with over 100 visitors to our studios in central Newcastle. Thank you to everyone who visited, and to everyone who made it possible.
More about the art
Ziza presented new work that is part of Free to Roam – an ambitious multidisciplinary project developed through Contested Desires residencies in Chile, Italy and the UK. For the Late Shows, visitors were invited into an installation of ceramic forms that drew on traditions of early Bantu-speaking communities in the African Great Lakes, alongside domestic figurines and collectables marked by colonial traces, stereotypes and embedded power dynamics.
In a durational performance, Ziza animated these objects by suspending them from a T-shaped pole, referencing the medieval Orbis Terrarum (T-O) map. Spoken and recorded excerpts from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Britney Spears’ Stronger introduced contrasting perceptions of power and subjugation. Together, the performance and installation disrupted static readings of history, offering an embodied and speculative reconfiguration of inherited authority and hierarchy.
In a durational performance, Ziza animated these objects by suspending them from a T-shaped pole, referencing the medieval Orbis Terrarum (T-O) map. Spoken and recorded excerpts from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Britney Spears’ Stronger introduced contrasting perceptions of power and subjugation. Together, the performance and installation disrupted static readings of history, offering an embodied and speculative reconfiguration of inherited authority and hierarchy.
Paul presented sound installations shaped by collaborative listening and shared authorship. Developed with Sangini – a Black and minoritised women-led community arts project in South Shields – and Mira, an intercultural community group in Budapest, We Sound Each Other brings together intimate sonic fragments: songs, poems and spoken memories interwoven with processed recordings of political speeches and right-wing rhetoric. The work foregrounds attentive listening as a means of revealing hidden histories and lived experiences of migration.
Emerging from his residency at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon, Good Hope Solidarity Score reflects Paul’s critical engagement with histories of colonialism. Drawing on Vasco da Gama’s voyage to Goa, India, the piece adopts a collaborative, process-led approach. An open call invited interpretations of the score from across the world, resulting in a collective sound work that underscores Paul’s commitment to shared authorship and decolonising practices which challenge hierarchy and conventional modes of production.
Alongside these works, Paul presented materials evoking leather passports, illustrated with detailed drawings and texts by participants from Sangini and Mira – recasting definitions of borders, and recalling stories of migration and belonging.
Emerging from his residency at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon, Good Hope Solidarity Score reflects Paul’s critical engagement with histories of colonialism. Drawing on Vasco da Gama’s voyage to Goa, India, the piece adopts a collaborative, process-led approach. An open call invited interpretations of the score from across the world, resulting in a collective sound work that underscores Paul’s commitment to shared authorship and decolonising practices which challenge hierarchy and conventional modes of production.
Alongside these works, Paul presented materials evoking leather passports, illustrated with detailed drawings and texts by participants from Sangini and Mira – recasting definitions of borders, and recalling stories of migration and belonging.
For the Late Shows, Elisabeth's new video installation guided viewers through sites of significance in Newcastle that have informed her body of work, Acts of Witnessing. The project traces the lives of Black and African individuals who visited or made a home in the city, including abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Henry ‘Box’ Brown, Zuza Ben I Ford – a performer at the mock ‘African Village’ during the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition – and performers who toured Newcastle’s theatres and music halls. In doing so, it reflects on the city’s entanglement with both abolitionist history and popular entertainment.
Running alongside this, a second screen featured interviews between Elisabeth and Beverley Prevatt-Goldstein and Pat Poinen – members of the North East of England African and Caribbean Community Association and African Lives in Northern England – who provided invaluable insight into many of the stories explored in her research.
We warmly thank the artists taking part.
Elisabeth, Paul and Ziza are part of a wider cohort of 22 artists from Africa, Europe and South America taking part in Contested Desires. The programme is co-funded by the European Union, and in the UK is generously supported by Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Newcastle’s Culture Investment Fund, enabling long-term artistic residencies and meaningful engagement with the region.
Find out more about Contested Desires here.
Images: Ziza, Gaggle from Free to Roam; Paul Nataraj, We Sound Each Other and Good Hope Solidarity Project; Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Acts of Witnessing.
Photos: Von Fox Promotions
Running alongside this, a second screen featured interviews between Elisabeth and Beverley Prevatt-Goldstein and Pat Poinen – members of the North East of England African and Caribbean Community Association and African Lives in Northern England – who provided invaluable insight into many of the stories explored in her research.
We warmly thank the artists taking part.
Elisabeth, Paul and Ziza are part of a wider cohort of 22 artists from Africa, Europe and South America taking part in Contested Desires. The programme is co-funded by the European Union, and in the UK is generously supported by Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Newcastle’s Culture Investment Fund, enabling long-term artistic residencies and meaningful engagement with the region.
Find out more about Contested Desires here.
Images: Ziza, Gaggle from Free to Roam; Paul Nataraj, We Sound Each Other and Good Hope Solidarity Project; Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Acts of Witnessing.
Photos: Von Fox Promotions
