The 10th iteration of the British Art Show opens in Coventry this October, with partnering venues including Warwick Arts Centre, the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and the city’s universities. Featuring work made within the last five years by renowned British artists, the exhibition is taking the title A Chorus Of Strangers. What’s On spoke to Brian Cass, head of Hayward Gallery Touring - the organisation behind the show - to find out more…

The British Art Show heads out on tour once again this autumn, in its 10th iteration. Taking place every five years and touring to select cities around the UK, the show collects together significant works by acclaimed contemporary artists. All of the included art has been made within the last five years - and in some cases, created specifically for the British Art Show itself.

The tour launches across Coventry venues on Friday 2 October and will remain in the city until Sunday 10 January. Brian Cass is Head of Hayward Gallery Touring, the organisation behind British Art Show 10.

“It’s almost 50 years since the very first British Art Show, which was in the late 70s,” Brian told What’s On.

“It is this significant, leviathan-like project with many different parts… British Art Show 10 will feature 34 artists. It is a curated overview of the last five years of creativity by artists based here in the UK or based outside. Of those 34 artists, about a third of them are making new work, and that’s always really exciting.”

The 10th iteration of the show is named A Chorus Of Strangers, inspired by a play from the late 1500s titled Sir Thomas Moore.

“Different writers contributed to the play,” Brian explains, “and sections of the play have been attributed to Shakespeare. He wrote a scene called The Stranger’s Case - it’s a time of rioting in the city of London, and Sir Thomas Moore makes the case for compassion and empathy.

“This word ‘stranger’ is a word that is bandied about quite a lot. In times of discord and division, the work that artists do is really quite important and incredibly profound, because in the most basic way, it forces us to see from more than one position at once.”

British Art Show 10 is divided into three sections, the titles of which - Moments Of Being, Ways Of Living and States Of Nature - also take inspiration from the written words of British authors and thinkers.

“[The first section] was inspired by Virginia Woolf,” explains Brian. “She wrote a famous text called Moments Of Being. She talks about these moments where the ‘cotton wool’ of everyday life falls away, and the ordinary world is revealed to be something beautiful.

“The second section is moving from ‘the interior’ into the ‘social’, so it’s art that’s really thinking about community, gathering, collective memory… The final section is again moving broader, and is thinking about the environment - the relationship between the human and the ‘more than human’; our connections with the wider physical and natural world.”

The curator for British Art Show 10 is the writer, curator & broadcaster Ekow Eshun.

“Ekow is a remarkable creator, but also a very generous collaborator,” says Brian. “He’s looking at work that allows us - through its use of material, through its use of colour, through its mood, through its beauty - to dwell in a place of uncertainty and indeterminacy. That plurality is a key part of the human experience. That is the core of a lot of the works that are presented in the show. It’s something he finds very exciting.

“When you bring artists together in a space, you’re trying to create narratives, and you’re trying to create an experience where people will feel very welcome and invited into something. Ekow’s curation, I would say, as well as all the artists in the show, is very keen to invite people in.”

In his role at Hayward Gallery Touring, Brian also oversaw the creation of the previous British Art Show, which was devised in 2020. In the intervening years, he says, both artists and gallery visitors have come to appreciate the physicality of getting close to works of art, and the materials which have been used.

“British Art Show 9 was thinking about how we illuminate a very complex time. Then Covid happened, and the murder of George Floyd happened, and questions of social justice were all really heightened. All that complexity and all that discord is still part of our world at the moment. What this show is trying to do - but in no way polemically - is invite people in, to encounter something remarkable but also see the world in different ways.”

The tour travels to five locations around Britain, beginning with that three-month stint in Coventry. Once the tour has concluded - in June 2028 - one of the artworks by 2024 Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur will be returned to Coventry.

“One important part of the British Art Show is that we support artists to make new work and to make ambitious work. Through the support of other funders, some of those works are going to be acquired by museums across the British Art Show tour.

“Jasleen Kaur is working in Coventry. [She’s] thinking about the history of the Delia Derbyshire building, the role of music in Coventry, that history - about justice, campaigning for equality, about peace and reconciliation - and how you can create sculptural environments which have ideas of support and sound within them.”

With dozens of artworks in the show, it’s hard to narrow down individual pieces which stand out from the crowd - a testament to the quality of the work on display.

“I’m so excited about all of them. Every artist that’s in British Art Show 10 is making really remarkable work. And it’s work that really feels alive and ‘of this moment’, while also illuminating history.

“There’s another piece by Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings. What they’re producing is an enormous four-screen fresco painting that’s exploring the history of public housing, in Newcastle in particular… Their work is looking at official histories of housing, of family and community, as well as what they would call a ‘queering of history’. What are these enclosures or structures or barriers? How do we move beyond them? I think what’s key to both Jasleen and Hannah & Rosie’s work is thinking beyond narrow, exclusionary structures.”

For the British Art Show 10 - with its core theme of connecting strangers - the curated relationships made by Hayward Gallery Touring result in a show which is greater than the sum of its parts.

“We’ve worked with the partners in Coventry in the past. We had a show last year in the Mead Gallery called Material Worlds, which was looking at textiles artists. And we did an exhibition with the Herbert - After The End Of History. It was a photography show looking at working-class photography.

“What’s unique about the British Art Show is we work with multiple partners in each city. That’s always an amazing thing - to see how these collaborative networks, which are the result of generosity and a lot of effort and trust, can make something that would not be possible in any other way… [These venues] do remarkable things on their own, but collectively, we can all do something really amazing.”

British Art Show 10 shows in venues across Coventry - including Warwick Arts Centre, the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, the University of Warwick and Coventry University - from Friday 2 October to Sunday 10 January

By Jessica Clixby

Image credit: Julianknxx, Still from Shifting _ Spirit _ Time, BURO Stedelijk, 2025, © Studioknxx