Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1966 16mm film, black-and-white, sound, 66 minutes © AWM

South by Southwest® (SXSW®) London (2nd – 7th June) has announced the Arts & Tech projects set to headline its inaugural strand of Interdisciplinary Exhibitions. This will be one of the four key strands presented at SXSW London across its 28-venue site, alongside music, screen and conference.

Denzil Forrester, Mad Professor, 2024. Oil on canvas, 200 x 163cm (78 3/4 x 64 1/8in). Copyright Denzil Forrester. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Todd-White Art Photography.

These exhibitions will embody the theme of convergence central to SXSW London’s overarching offer. By showcasing the intersection of the arts, technology and creativity in all its forms, the programme reflects the beautiful collision of cultures and communities that make SXSW unique. 

These interdisciplinary exhibitions are a key point of difference to the other global SXSW editions; reflecting the particular role that culture plays in the UK and Europe as a multi-billion-pound economic driver and force for innovation. 

Beeple, Tree of Knowledge © Beeple Studios

SX LDN LAB, curated by Alex Poots (Artistic Director, The Shed), will explore one of the most exciting crossroads in contemporary culture, the transformative place where the arts and technology meet. This is a collection of artworks that explore past, present and future frontiers in the arts, technology and physical space, featuring works by Andy Warhol, Beeple, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, andcontributions by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Glitch Collective.

‘Under the skin of the ocean, the thing urges us up wild’. Alberta Whittle. Mount Stuart Visual Arts 2024.

‘Beautiful Collisions,’ curated by Beth Greenacre (Independent curator and advisor), is a week-long immersive exhibition, and will explore the significant role of Caribbean diaspora artists in London’s cultural scene. With a mix of visual arts, community and music, the exhibition will centre work by Alberta Whittle, Alvaro Barrington, Denzil Forrester, Emelda’s Junction, Runkus, Tavares Strachan and Zinzi Minott.

Courtesy of the artist © Damien Roach, ‘Grounding’, 2025

Greenacre’s second curated project will showcase Damien Roach’s ‘Grounding,’ an immersive audiovisual installation that refracts the imaging of landscape through the lens of cutting-edge Generative AI technology and quantum physics.

SX LDN LAB 

For its European debut, SXSW London will present and commission four projects in a series called SX LDN LAB which will explore the intersection of art, technology and physical space, featuring work by Andy Warhol, Beeple, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst with contributions from Hans Ulrich Obrist and Glitch Collective.

Presented in Protein Studios, a freestanding industrial building on the SXSW London campus, the Lab will consist of four thematically aligned projects:

Andy Warhol: An installation featuring a series of Warhol films, many of which appeared in the artist’s landmark immersive club show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, will be installed under the supervision of Patrick Moore, former director of The Andy Warhol Museum and cultural advisor to SXSW London. 

Beeple: Known for his pioneering digital art and NFTs produced outside the confines of the traditional art, Beeple’s new generative sculpture, The Tree of Knowledge, will make its UK debut presenting themes of nature and sustainability in the context of technology. 

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst: AI art and music innovators present their vision for collaborative artmaking in the age of AI, including an interactive installation from The Call*, an R&D and exhibition partnership between Serpentine Arts Technologies.

Contributions by Artistic Director of Serpentine and art world polymath Hans Ulrich Obrist andGlitch Collective. 

SX LDN LAB is curated by Alex Poots and produced by North Star Studio (Poots’ creative production house).

Beautiful Collisions

‘Beautiful Collisions’ is a week-long immersive exhibition featuring leading contemporary artists working across painting, music and performance. The exhibition will explore the significant role of Caribbean diaspora artists in London’s cultural scene. Housed in Christchurch Spitalfields, Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Baroque masterpiece, the installation will celebrate the relationship between the church and the dancehall; image and music; kinship and community.

At the centre of the exhibition are the vibrant paintings of Denzil Forrester, capturing the dynamic energy and sense of community of East London’s reggae and dub nightclub scene during the 1980s and 1990s. 

Forrester’s work will be complemented by contributions from renowned artist Tavares Strachan, subject of a recent Hayward Gallery exhibition and Jamaican musician Runkus. Throughout the week, Strachan will curate a unique B.A.S.E.C (Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center) store and cafe, serving Caribbean inspired food and drinks alongside a library and other items to be announced.

Alongside this, Zinzi Minott will present this year’s iteration of Fi Dem, an annual multimedia project made on the anniversary of the docking of Empire Windrush. Like Minott, Alberta Whittle’s, sculptural installation will meditate on the ongoing erasure of Black bodies, voices and narratives as well as experiences of Black womxn.

Alvaro Barrington will present new works, as well as Emelda’s Junction – a series of music performances and events programmed by Barrington’s studio – in a special SXSW London collaboration with Errol and Alex Rita’s Touching Bass.

‘Beautiful Collisions’ is curated by Beth Greenacre.

Damien Roach, Grounding

Damien Roach’s ‘Grounding’ is an immersive audiovisual installation which explores the transient, fleeting and ever-changing nature of land, matter, and the environment via the equally unstable ecology of the networked digital image. In its embrace of the constant motion and change observed across both the vastness of deep time and the microscopic scales of emergent quantum phenomena, Grounding’s never-repeating constellation of image and sound actively encourages an engagement with non-linear, multiperspectival, non-anthropocentric ways of seeing. Borrowing the algorithmic eye of generative media, Grounding points toward an existentially vital emancipation from human-scaled forms of relation with time, matter, the Earth, and other lifeforms in the era of climate crisis and widespread sociopolitical uncertainty. 

‘Grounding’ will be hosted in The Truman Brewery, the main conference site for SXSW London, and is curated by Beth Greenacre.

MORE: sxswlondon.com/arts

About SXSW London  

A global platform celebrating the convergence of creativity, culture and innovation, SXSW’s inaugural European edition SXSW London builds on the brand’s decades of success in Austin and now Sydney.   

Between June 2-7 2025 SXSW London will take over dozens of venues, galleries, clubs and spaces around Shoreditch in east London, including many independent and community-led spaces. In addition to the inspiring keynotes, music showcases, and innovations in tech, gaming and screen that fans have come to expect from SXSW, SXSW London will introduce new arts and culture programming in a first for the brand globally. SXSW London will also feature a particular focus on creative sectors and talent from across Europe, and is anticipated to generate over £75M in direct economic benefits for London and the UK. 

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