Installation view of All That You Can't Leave Behind by Ufuoma Essi
Former Somerset House Studios resident

Ufuoma Essi

Ufuoma Essi Is a video artist and filmmaker from Lewisham, South East London. 

Somerset House Studios
New Wing

Ufuoma Essi works predominantly with film and moving image as well as photography and sound. Her work revolves around Black feminist epistemology and the configuration of displaced histories. The archive forms an essential medium for her as an artist and it’s through explorations with the archive that she aims to interrogate and disrupt the silences and gaps of political and historical narratives.

From Where We Land - Still 1.jpg

Film still - From Where We Land
From Where we Land (still)


Ufuoma Essi (b.1995, London) is a video artist and filmmaker. Her work revolves around Black feminist epistemology and the configuration of displaced histories. She took part in the artist development programme Syllabus VI – Spike Island, Wysing Arts Centre, Iniva, Studio Voltaire and Eastside Projects (2020–21). Recent solo exhibitions include All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Public Gallery, London (2022), and From Where We Land, South London Gallery (2021). Recent group exhibitions include Ata koia!, TeTuhi, Auckland, (2022); An Infinity of Traces, Lisson Gallery, London (2021); Not Without Joy, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2021). Selected screenings include 17th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Berwick Upon-Tweed (2021); Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (2021–20); Prismatic Ground Film Festival, New York (2021); BLK Docs x Maysles Documentary Center: Instant Ancenstry, New York (2020), among others. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Is My Living in Vain at Gasworks in London (2022) and at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland (2023).