This year, cities across the UK have seen art escape gallery walls and enter public spaces. Liverpool Biennial, which ran from April to September, used a pharmacy as one of its key venues, whilst part of this season’s Bradford 2025 programme is set to unfold in a shopping centre. As a curatorial approach, this is vital. It allows audiences to engage with art outside of traditional settings, weaving creativity into everyday life and reminding us that culture thrives when it is accessible. Now, Connaught Village Art Month joins this movement, transforming a London district just minutes from Oxford Street and Marble Arch. The event celebrates culture not only in galleries, but also through pop-up events in retail spaces.
The area’s shops, for example, brim with sculpture and installation. One exhibition takes its name from John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows – a compendium of “emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express.” Koenig defines “anemoia” as “the feeling of nostalgia for a time you’ve never known,” and the featured artists – Eleanor McLean, Ellie Pearch and Jacob Talkowski – riff on this idea. McLean, in particular, engages with the memory-laden emotional charge of domestic objects – presenting ethereal lampshades and door locks that lead to nowhere. The show is curated by creatives from Acme Studios, a London-based charity which has been supporting artists since 1972. Anemoia‘s accompanying events programme includes an artist talk (15 October) and mosaic workshop (24 October).
Other highlights include His Own Image, at CasildART, which brings together twelve artists who are redefining reductive stereotypes around Black masculinity. Their work interrogates the politics of visibility and self-representation, offering “visions of identity shaped by family, community and diaspora.” From portraits painted on reclaimed urban objects to layered print-paint hybrids, surreal figuration, and narrative canvases, these are essential artworks that push beyond white, Eurocentric perspectives. Featured names: Kofi Amoateng, Natnael Ashebir, Gabriel Choto, Stephen Anthony Davids, Christian Hiadzi, Kay Gasei, Richard Mensah, Matt Small, Eme Omeh, Sol Golden Sata, Nigaut Tsehay and Qozeem.
Elsewhere, at RNat5A, visitors will experience a light art exhibition from Rob and Nick Carter, who explore neon “as both material and concept.” Audiences can expect colour-changing light boxes and text-based pieces that buzz, flicker and glow. Many of the duo’s works are influenced by art history and colour theory, or play with traditional optical tricks. As such, the show includes tributes to Andy Warhol, Josef Albers and the Poggendorff Illusion, discovered in 1860. Likewise, abstraction is the focus of a group show at Matt Carey-Williams gallery, in which emerging painters Isabella Amram, Gena Milanesi and Daniel Roibal present different approaches to the genre. Their work is on view alongside The Path and The Fog, Part II, a series of jewel-like works by Chris Huen Sin-kan. There’s also the debut solo show of Flog, a French street artist with a raw, poetic style, who is bringing work into a gallery space (Dorothy Circus) for the first time.
Connaught Village Art Month offers a new perspective on a district best-known for its tree-lined streets and pastel-coloured Victorian and Georgian houses. From powerful interrogations of identity to playful experiments with light, text and image, the programme reveals the many ways in which art can shape public life. More than a series of exhibitions, it advances a national conversation about how creativity can thrive beyond institutions – reimagining the city as a site of discovery, dialogue and connection.
Connaught Village Art Month takes place throughout October.
Events Programme
Art Talk with Anemoia | 15 October, 6–7pm: Join the artists for an intimate discussion about their work and the themes behind the exhibition. Click here to find out more.
Mosaic Workshop | 24 October: Hosted by the Eleanor McLean. Click here to find out more.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Rob and Nick Carter, Spectrum Neon Circle. (2021)
2. Rob and Nick Carter, Language of Colour, Pink. (2017)
3. Rob and Nick Carter, Language of Colour, Green. (2017)
4. Eleanor McLean, Blue Skies.
5. Gena Milanesi, Deep River. (2025)
6. Gena Milanesi, Bird Catcher. (2025)
