The World Reimagined

With Globes as their canvas, our artists bring to life the Journey of Discovery in trails across our host cities.

Explore the Globes

Yinka Shonibare CBE

Yinka Shonibare CBE is The World Reimagined’s Founding Artist, having conceived both the base globe sculpture and the first Globe to feature in the Trails - ‘The World Reimagined’, after which the entire project is named.

Meet Our Artists

The World Reimagined artists who are going to be designing powerful, inspiring and incredibly thought-provoking globes, for each of our seven host cities.

Meet our artists⁠

The Transformative Power of Art

The World Reimagined, at its core, is built on our belief in the transformative power of art: to inspire, to move and to open our imagination to new possibilities. And so the artists that create the Globe sculptures that form our trails are essential in helping people travel through this Journey of Discovery. We are hugely grateful to all of our artists for the depth, meaning and brilliance they have brought to creation of the Globes.

In the words of our Founding Artist, Yinka Shonibare CBE:

“With art, you can explore a multiplicity of dimensions – it takes in culture, history, debate. And I think it’s a great platform to actually engage the public as well, because people do tend to pay more attention than they would if you had just said something. 

This is everybody’s issue and everybody should pay attention to it. I’m hoping that it will create awareness around issues of discrimination, educational opportunity, enterprise opportunity, business opportunity – you name it! – in the many areas where people have actually been excluded. I’m hoping that this will contribute something towards changing people’s views and perceptions.”

Explore All 103 Globes!

Visit Our Globes Gallery

Meet the
artists

Open Call
Jurors

Chris Ofili was born in Manchester, England, in 1968, and currently lives and works in Trinidad. He received his BA in Fine Art from the Chelsea School of Art in 1991 and his MA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art in 1993. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented internationally, including recent shows at the National Gallery, London (2017); the New Museum, New York (2014), travelling to Aspen Art Museum (2015); The Arts Club of Chicago (2010); Tate Britain, London (2010 and 2005); kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005), and Serpentine Gallery, London (1998). He represented Britain in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and won the Turner Prize in 1998. His works are held in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the British Museum, London; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MoMA, New York; Tate, London; the V&A, London; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Chris Ofili CBE

Matthew J. Smith is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Previously he taught at the University of the West Indies, Mona in Jamaica where he was Professor of Caribbean History. His research is pan-Caribbean with special interest in Haiti and Jamaica. Among his publications is Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica After Emancipation (2014) and Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict and Political Change, 1934-1957 (2009). He is also director of a 2018 documentary film The Past is Not Our Future: Walter Rodney’s Student Years.

Dr. Matthew Smith

Renée Mussai is a curator, writer and scholar with a special interest in African and diasporic lens-based visual arts practices. She is Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial & Collection at Autograph, London, an arts charity advocating for rights, representation and social justice through photography and film, where she has worked for almost two decades: organising exhibitions in Europe, Africa and America, commissioning a diverse constituency of international artists, developing a range of artistic programmes including publications and curating Autograph’s unique collection of photography. Mussai lectures regularly on photography, visual culture, and curatorial activism, and her writing has appeared in numerous artist monographs and anthologies including by TATE, Aperture, NkA, and other journals and publications. Her recent publications and exhibitions include Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born to Endless Night—Dark Matter (2019/20), Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama—Hail the Dark Lioness (2017 – present); Phoebe Boswell: The Space Between Things (2018/19); and Black Chronicles IV (2018). Initiated by Zanele Muholi, she has co-curated the collaborative Women’s Mobile Museum (Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, 2018). In addition to her curatorial practice, Mussai is Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London; and since 2009, regular guest curator and former Fellow at the Hutchins Centre for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She is also a part-time PhD candidate in History of Art at University College London where she is currently completing her doctoral thesis on nineteenth century ‘raced’ portrait photography and contemporary curatorial care, based on the critically acclaimed The Missing Chapter – Black Chronicles archive research programmes she has led between 2014 – 2018 (publication forthcoming 2021/22). She serves on a number of committees including The Royal Photographic Society and Fast Forward: Women in Photography.

Renée Mussai

Dr. Zoé Whitley is Director of London’s non-profit Chisenhale Gallery. Zoé curated Frieze London’s 2020 special exhibition Possessions and co-curated Elijah Pierce’s America at the Barnes Foundation. She curated the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019) and co-curated the award-winning Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. She writes widely on contemporary artists and 20th century designers, including children’s books on Frank Bowling and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. She serves on the Arts Council Collection committee, on the boards of Creative Access, Decolonising Arts Institute and the London Mayor’s Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm.

Zoé Whitley

Watch our
Artist Masterclasses!

To encourage the wisest possible participation in the Open Call, we ran a series of Masterclasses which discussed how artists could explore and engage with the themes of The Journey of Discovery and develop their designs for the Globe Trails.

Hosted by our Artistic Director Lady Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye, they featured some of our amazing artists, board members and partners:

THE GLOBE AS YOUR CANVAS

featuring Yinka Shonibare CBE & Nicola Green

EXPLORING YOUR THEME

featuring Fiona Compton & Professor Matthew Smith

OUR SHARED HISTORY AND COLLECTIVE STRENGTH

featuring Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin & Michelle Gayle

ADVICE ON THE ARTIST OPEN CALL

featuring Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye and Fiona Compton

The World Reimagined is a company limited by guarantee (#1250114) and a registered charity (#115223). 

Privacy Modern Slavery Statement

Our Host Cities

Birmingham
Bristol
Leeds
Leicester
Liverpool City Region
London
Swansea

Pages

Sign up to our newsletter