In Conversation: Onyeka Igwe & Test Dept
Artist-filmmaker Onyeka Igwe talks with industrial music pioneers Test Dept, moderated by curator and archivist Andrea Zarza Canova.
Doors: 4pm
| Dates | Sat 28 Mar 2026 |
| Times | 4.15pm - 5.15pm |
| Space | River Rooms, New Wing |
| Price | £5 |
Artists in Residence
Part Of:
Taking Igwe’s Assembly performance No archive can restore this chorus of (diasporic) shame as its point of departure, the conversation brings together artists whose sound work shares an exploration of protest, resistance, and the collective voice.
No archive can restore this chorus of (diasporic) shame sees a 13-person a cappella choir reimagining songs from the Egba Market Women's Revolt (1947) — a seminal anti-colonial protest — found in the archive of educator and activist Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, composed into a new song cycle by artist and musician Tanya Auclair. Interlacing the work’s choral arrangement is a collection of field recordings, video and spoken testimonials from Igwe’s research gathered over the last five years.
In 1984, South London industrial experimentalists Test Dept recorded Shoulder to Shoulder with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir, a collaborative album in support of the 1984-85 miners’ strike that combined traditional Welsh choral song with Test Dept’s signature percussive intensity. Together they toured nationally, raising money and awareness, with all profits going to the striking workers.
Andrea Zarza Canova joins Igwe and Test Dept members Graham Cunnington and Paul Jamrozy to discuss both projects and the political, archival, and collaborative dimensions of their practices.
Biographies
Test Dept
Test Dept is an industrial music band formed in New Cross, London, by Paul Jamrozy, Graham Cunnington, Angus Farquhar, Paul Hines and Toby Burdon. Formed in 1981, they utilised the waste debris from the local scrapyards to create a sonic arsenal from recycled scrap metal. Their exploration of tonality was fused with experimental electronics and early sampling technology, film and slide montaged visuals, as well as combining traditional instruments, notably bagpipes from Alistair Adams. They are hailed by many musicians as one of the most influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked out by a strong and forceful commitment to radical politics; their multi-media performance at Paddington Station to mark the abolition of the GLC in 1986 is still regarded as one of the most awe inspiring events of the decade.
Onyeka Igwe
Onyeka Igwe is a London born and based, moving image artist and researcher. Her work is aimed at the question: how do we live together? Not to provide a rigid answer as such, but to pull apart the nuances of mutuality, co-existence and multiplicity. Onyeka’s practice figures sensorial, spatial and counter-hegemonic ways of knowing as central to that task. For her, the body, archives and narratives both oral and textual act as a mode of enquiry that makes possible the exposition of overlooked histories.
She has had solo/duo shows at Tate Britain (2025), MoMA PS1, New York (2023), High Line, New York (2022), Mercer Union, Toronto (2021), Jerwood Arts, London (2019) and Trinity Square Video, London (2018). Recent group exhibitions have been held at Rockbund Art Museum (2025), Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Nigeria Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; Lagos Biennial, Lagos (all 2024); The Common Guild, Glasgow and South London Gallery, London; (2023). She was jointly awarded the Film London Jarman Award in 2025.
Andrea Zarza Canova
Andrea Zarza Canova is a curator, archivist, and AHRC-funded PhD researcher based in London, working with historical sound recordings through exhibitions, publishing, and radio to connect archives of sound with political, social, and cultural histories. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with Nottingham Contemporary, where she recently co-curated the exhibition and associated live programme Your Ears Later Will Know to Listen. The exhibition explored how sound travels and transitions through cross-cultural identities, histories, and futures, featuring artworks that “listen back” to uncover muted histories while also creating new moments to receive and hold historical dissonance.
She has delivered talks, listening sessions, and curated exhibitions internationally, including with NTS Radio, Relativa Radio, Southbank Centre, Somerset House, Rhubaba Gallery, nGbK, CentroCentro, TBA21, Sandberg Instituut and Pirelli HangarBicocca, amongst others. She co-ran the record label Mana from 2016 to 2023, and recently launched traza, releasing Un-Muting by Satch Hoyt on 3 October 2025.