Boscombe World

Harold Offeh

B.A.D. will feature our major festival exhibition, Boscombe World, commissioned from artist Harold Offeh, an adventurous visual and sensory art installation, inviting play, participation and contemplation.

Boscombe World explores the area’s rich history as a seaside resort for visitors in search of health, recuperation and pleasure, brought into dialogue with Boscombe’s contemporary perception as a place for recovery, sanctuary and asylum.

The installation invites visitors to engage with Boscombe as a place of healing and restorative care. Boscombe World will be a hub for a number of playful installations. The project hopes to provide an opportunity to reflect on the rich and complex narratives of Boscombe and challenge the reducing of places and communities to labels, like good, bad, ugly etc. It will seek to confront cliches and stereotypes and provide a platform for narratives and voices that have not been heard or marginalised. .

Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice. Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories. He employs humour as a means to confront the viewer with historical narratives and contemporary culture. He has exhibited and performed widely in the UK and internationally including Tate Britain and Tate Modern, South London Gallery, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Wysing Art Centre, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, MAC VAL, France, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark and Art Tower Mito, Japan.

Offeh studied Critical Fine Art Practice at the University of Brighton and has an MA in Fine art Photography from the Royal College of Art, London and a PhD in Contemporary Art and Performance from Leeds Beckett University. He lives in Cambridge and works in London and Oxford. He is currently a Senior Tutor in Art at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford and a tutor in MA Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, London.

Harold Offeh, workshop presented for East Side Projects, Birmingham, 2020. Image ©️ Ashley Carr.

Boscombe World is a BEAF 2023 Commission, supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
The preview for this exhibition is Friday 16 June, 6-8pm. 

Free event, no booking required.

Read our latest interview with Harold talking about the themes of care, rest, healing and recovery in Boscombe World.

Harold will be talking about Boscombe World on Sat 17 June at 3pm. Book a free ticket here.