Art Icon: Doris Salcedo in Conversation with Samira Ahmed

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    Doris Salcedo by David Heald (2015) (L) & Samira Ahmed (R)

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Sat 1 Mar, 2pm

Gallery 2

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am–6pm
Wednesday 11am–6pm
Thursday 11am–9pm
Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–6pm

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Art Icon Talk
Doris Salcedo in Conversation with Samira Ahmed

Join us for a special event with Doris Salcedo, our 2025 Art Icon.

Doris Salcedo is a leading voice in contemporary art, known for her arresting sculptural and installation works that engage with themes of political violence, trauma and loss. This is a unique opportunity to hear Salcedo discuss her extraordinary career, which has drawn upon her own experiences of Colombia’s turbulent political history while also reflecting broader global concerns.

The event marks Salcedo receiving Whitechapel Gallery’s Art Icon award, which celebrates the work of an artist deemed to have made a profound contribution to the artistic landscape.

Salcedo will be joined in conversation by Samira Ahmed, the award-winning BBC writer, journalist and broadcaster.

There will also be an opportunity for audience members to ask questions and contribute to the discussion.

Art Icon raise valuable funds for Whitechapel Gallery, a registered charity, and proceeds from ticket sales for this event will support our Exhibitions and Participation programmes, designed to inspire and develop a new generation of artists. Please consider adding an optional donation to your ticket purchase.

About Doris Salcedo

Doris Salcedo was born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1958 where she continues to live and work. Her solo exhibitions include Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2023); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2022); Glenstone, Travilah, Maryland (2022); Kunsthalle St. Annen, Lubbeck, Germany (2019); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019); Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2017); Harvard Art Museums, Massachusetts (2016); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, touring to Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2015–16); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2014); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico, touring to Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome, White Cube, London and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2011–13); Tate Modern, London (2007); Camden Arts Centre, London (2001); Tate Britain, London (1999); and New Museum, New York (1998).

About Samira Ahmed

Award winning journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed presents Front Row on Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC1. In 2023, she made headlines around the world for uncovering the earliest complete concert recording of the Beatles performing in the UK, at Stowe School in 1963 and helped secure its acquisition by the British Library for the nation. She was named British Broadcasting Press Guild audio presenter of the year in 2020, the same year she won a landmark sex discrimination employment tribunal against the BBC for equal pay on Newswatch. Her acclaimed three-part BBC4 documentary series Art of Persia (2020) was one of the first major Western TV series to be filmed in Iran for 40 years. She was previously a news anchor and correspondent for Channel 4 News, where she won the Stonewall Broadcast of the Year award for her film about the so-called “corrective” rape of lesbian women in South Africa; and for BBC News, where she covered the OJ Simpson case while LA Correspondent. Her many documentaries explore the intersection of popular culture, science, politics, and social change. They include I Dressed Ziggy Stardust, John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls, HG Wells and the H Bomb, The Fundamentalist Queen about Elizabeth Cromwell (wife of Oliver Cromwell) and Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, for which she spent months studying the diaries of the famous morality campaigner. Samira is a trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice and on the advisory board of the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford and the editorial review board of Doctor Who magazine. She is an honorary fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.