Fondazione In Between Art Film and Camden Art Centre are delighted to announce Tendered, the first institutional solo exhibition in the UK by artist and filmmaker Karimah Ashadu (UK/Nigeria, b. 1985), winner of the Silver Lion for Promising Young Artist in the Venice Biennale 2024.

Tendered is the second project launched under Unison, a biennial initiative promoted by Fondazione In Between Art Film to commission and produce moving image–based exhibitions in partnership with international public institutions. The show follows Ali Cherri’s solo exhibition Dreamless Night which was held at GAMeC, Bergamo, and Frac Bretagne in 2022-23.

Curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi of Fondazione In Between Art Film, the exhibition includes the premiere of MUSCLE – a newly commissioned moving-image installation – as well as a series of new sculptures conceived especially for the show that reference objects and environments within the film.

MUSCLE (2025) is an intimate portrait of body builders in the heart of Lagos’ slums striving to attain a hyper-masculine ideal, continuing the artist’s research into issues of socio-economic independence and patriarchy within the context of West African culture and society. MUSCLE is commissioned and produced by Camden Art Centre, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where it will be presented in autumn 2026.

In addition, the exhibition features a selection of earlier moving image works also set in Lagos – King of Boys (Abattoir of Makoko) (2015), a window into the inner workings of the Makoko abattoir, and Cowboy (2022), a two-channel film that follows a man who has dedicated his life to the care of horses – configured within discrete environments that extend aspects of the films into the viewing space.

The show takes visitors on a journey through the range of Ashadu’s practice, from the intimate to the expansive, featuring works that form a cinematic narrative of bodies and land – an undulating scenario of urban subcultures, quotidian labour, and our relationship to nature.

Ashadu’s practice looks at the contemporary manifestations of Nigerian history as they are borne by its people and landscape. Having grown up between the United Kingdom and Nigeria, the artist situates her point of view within a constant negotiation of distance, one that pertains to diasporic existences. It is through a sympathetic proximity – as opposed to a documentary approach – that Ashadu observes the struggles, and gathers the stories, of working men – from the motorcycle taxi riders in Machine Boys (2024) to the tin miners in Plateau (2022) or the palm oil farmers in Red Gold (2016).

Her background in painting carries through to the visual language of her films, combining a strong sense of colour, composition and form, with the fugitive kinetics of her camera lens. This unique approach to the handling of the camera, and the framing of its gaze, defies the tendency towards spectacle in colonial ethnographic documentation. Ashadu’s nuanced and intimate portraits, whether of individuals or communities, probe multifaceted reflections onto the notions of masculinity and patriarchal systems within the cultural context of West Africa, as they are inextricably related to the conditions of economic independence and exploitation in the aftermath of British colonial rule.

Tendered is accompanied by the first reference monograph dedicated to the artist, edited by Bianca Stoppani, editor at Fondazione In Between Art Film, with Rabottini and Bigazzi. Published by Mousse, the monograph features contributions from Karimah Ashadu; Myriam Ben Salah, director and chief curator at The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Leonardo Bigazzi, curator at Fondazione In Between Art Film; Gina Buenfeld-Murley, curator at Camden Art Centre, London; Martin Clark, director at Camden Art Centre, London; Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka, associate professor in film, culture and society, UCL, London; Alessandro Rabottini, artistic director at Fondazione In Between Art Film; Bettina Steinbrügge, director at Mudam Luxembourg; and Arese Uwuoruya, assistant curator at Camden Art Centre.