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Hosted by HOUSE OF DREAD
A performance exploring how sound operates as presence, erasure and resistance within archives
Autograph’s new exhibition uses collage to ask how images can stand in for disputed – and often entangled – narratives when words fail.
For this live performance in the gallery, we’ve partnered with HOUSE OF DREAD, a heritage studio that uses archival material to research the complicated stories and experiences of the people, places and movements that have been undocumented, under-researched or forgotten.
Their Researcher-in-Residence will perform an immersive sonic collage, created from field recordings, oral histories, ambient soundscapes, and other sources – exploring how sound operates as presence, erasure and resistance within archives. Following the sound performance, there will be time for a Q&A.
This event opens House of Dread’s upcoming symposium 'Thinking Wid Silence' at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Wednesday 2 December 2025.
HOUSE OF DREAD is an anti-disciplinary heritage studio. Part-archive, part-lab, part-community, committed to honouring what has been silenced or erased while imagining new futures.
It’s a space that reshapes historical storytelling by centring Black and diasporic memory through research, heritage, sound, and community practice. Instead of treating archives as static collections, HOUSE OF DREAD works with them as living, evolving spaces for inquiry, collective memory, and re-imagination.
The studio runs public programmes, exhibitions, and creative residencies that combine scholarship, oral history, music, and performance. Its ethos is rooted in diasporic traditions of reasoning, reflection, and resistance. Creating spaces of care, cultural learning, and collective inheritance.
HOUSE OF DREAD will host their annual symposium 'Thinking Wid Silence'. Follow @houseofdread_ on Instagram to stay updated.
Dr. Aleema Gray is a Jamaican-born curator and public historian whose work explores Black British history, memory, and resistance. She is the founder of HOUSE OF DREAD, an anti-disciplinary heritage studio reshaping historical storytelling through research, sound, and community practice. She was Lead Curator for the award winning exhibition Beyond the Baseline: 500 Years of Black British Music at the British Library, with a practice rooted in diasporic memory, oral histories, and collaborative approaches.
Nana Opoku is a producer and community organiser working across film, television, and live events. As Senior Production Manager at HOUSE OF DREAD, she supports projects at the intersection of heritage, culture, and grassroots organising. Her practice is grounded in care, Black feminist praxis, and intergenerational exchange, building spaces where artists, academics, and communities co-create meaningful cultural experiences.
Derick Armah is HOUSE OF DREAD first Researcher in Residence as part of Reasoning with the Archive program. Derrick is a creative practitioner working across sound, photography, and poetry. His practice centres communal storytelling, exploring the deep connections between people and place and how communities shape, and are shaped by, their social and historical environments.
Drawing on his background in history, Derick peels back layers of lived experience to archive and re-present narratives often overlooked, grounding his work in the familiar spaces where memory and identity are made.
Free Exhibition
From cut paper to generative AI, examining political dissent and erasure through the idea of collage.
We look forward to welcoming you to Autograph. For more details about visiting, have a look at our Visit Us page, it has information about getting to the gallery, safety and accessibility.
Autograph welcomes people with all types of disabilities.
This is a seated event.
Our building and entrance is step free. A wheelchair accessible lift goes to all floors.
There is a free, staffed cloakroom at this event for coats and large bags.
Please note that photography and/or filming will take place at this event. Images from this event may be used by Autograph for promotional use on our website and reports.
Banner image: I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies exhibition at Autograph, London. 10 October 2025 - 21 March 2026. Curated by Bindi Vora. Photograph by Kate Elliott.
Images on page: 1) Sabrina Tirvengadum and Mark Allred, Family [detail], 2023. 2) Autograph, photograph by Kate Elliott.
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Autograph is a space to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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