Afro Goddesses: Mickalene Thomas Panel Discussion
Celebrate International Women’s Day weekend with a discussion of the representation of Black women in All About Love, the Hayward Gallery’s new exhibition.
The Hayward Gallery’s Roden Chief Curator Rachel Thomas is joined by author, academic and broadcaster Emma Dabiri and curator Aindrea Emelife as they delve into the exhibition and its empowering visions of Black women across painting, photography and collage.
Emma Dabiri shares her reflections as a bestselling author on the embodied experience of Black womanhood and a devotee of the writing of bell hooks, after whom the exhibition is titled.
And Aindrea Emelife brings an expert curatorial perspective on the reclaiming of narratives around Black femininity within modern and contemporary art.
Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian author, academic and broadcaster. She spent over a decade as a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS and is a final year Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths. She is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller What White People Can Do Next, Don’t Touch My Hair and Disobedient Bodies.
Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specialising in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Emelife has been the inaugural Curator of MOWAA (Museum of West African Art) in Benin City, Nigeria since 2023. Emelife is on the Board of Trustees for New Curators.
Emma Dabiri
Aindrea Emelife
For your visit
This event is held at the Royal Festival Hall Southbank Centre
The Royal Festival Hall is open six days a week.
Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 11pm
Monday, closed.
Plan your visit
The Royal Festival Hall is home to our largest auditorium as well as The Clore Ballroom, National Poetry Library, Members’ Lounge, Festival Bar & Kitchen, Ballroom Cafe and Skylon restaurant.
Getting here
Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues. More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.
We’re cash-free
Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.
Access
We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.
All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.
All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.
Food & drink
On Level 2 of our Royal Festival Hall you can grab a slice of life by the Thames with drinks and freshly made pizza at our Festival Bar & Kitchen which opens out onto our Riverside Terrace. You can grab a coffee and a slice of freshly made cake from our Ballroom Cafe. Or alternatively enjoy destination dining in the restaurant at Skylon.
From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.