Lubaina Himid presents *Predicting History: Testing Translation* at the British Pavilion of the 61st Venice Art Biennale in 2026. The exhibition features large, multi-panelled paintings depicting black figures as architects, tailors, chefs, boatbuilders, and gardeners, accompanied by East-African kangas bearing unsettling texts. A soundscape of an idyllic British summer contrasts with the works' exploration of displacement and belonging. Himid, a black British artist who immigrated from Zimbabwe, draws on her background in theatre and set design, working with curator Ese Onojeruo and the British Council.
This exhibition matters because it directly confronts the experience of marginalised people—particularly black communities—navigating spaces that are not designed for them. Himid uses the authoritative neoclassical architecture of the British Pavilion to challenge mainstream British national identity, highlighting the multicultural reality shaped by migrant labour and colonial history. The show continues Himid's decades-long practice of addressing migration, marginalisation, and assimilation, themes she pioneered in her 1985 exhibition *The Thin Black Line*. It offers a timely, immersive critique of belonging and exclusion in contemporary Europe.