Research

Lisa is currently a PhD researcher at the Kingston University, School of Art in the Department of Critical and Historical Studies.

Working Project Summary

A Liminal Site: Cultural Intermediaries, Agency, Identity and Representation

This practice-based, interdisciplinary research interrogates the power dynamics of agency within the methods employed by cultural intermediaries (curators, critics, dealers) that shape how the identities of marginalised artists are reinforced or resisted. Engaging with the practice of Nnena Kalu—a learning-disabled artist with limited verbal communication—the project examines how agency, identity, and representation intersect within existing artworld strategies.

It takes into account how the historical emphasis on biographical otherness—codifying practices by their distance from a canonical centre—has complicated contemporary identity politics in art, particularly when intermediaries cannot access, as in the case of Kalu, an artist’s direct articulation of their practice. It asks: without direct access to the artist’s rationale, when and how can a position of marginalisation be employed as an identity framework? How can the concept of a liminal site challenge art-institutional norms and inform a transgressive methodology for representing artists from marginalised positions?

Drawing on María Lugones’ theory of the limen as a relational threshold space of resistance to dominant meaning, the research proposes a liminal methodology that positions cultural intermediaries coalitionally as radical advocates rather than gatekeepers. The project maps both conventional and emerging strategies through interviews, public forums, and curatorial practice. Kalu’s nomination for, and win of, the Turner Prize in 2025 has emerged as a central and critical case study.

As a cultural intermediary, I am working with Kalu and her supported studio, ActionSpace, to develop, establish, and enact a liminal methodology. Grounded in feminist, decolonial, and disability theory, the research interrogates the positionality of artists and expands how difference is mediated. The project contributes new knowledge and methodological innovation by challenging existing paradigms and offering a transferable framework for fostering more equitable and inclusive representation within the arts ecology.

Nnena Kalu

Nnena Kalu is an artist living and working in London. Her practice is rooted in two-dimensional works, sculpture, and installation. Kalu binds and wraps materials, exploring space, scale, and materiality through repetitive sculptural processes. Solo exhibitions include Nnena Kalu: Creations of Care, Kunsthall Stavanger (2025); Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10, Manifesta 15, Barcelona (2024); Nnena Kalu, Arcadia Missa, London (2024); Infinite Drawing, Deptford X, London (2022); Studio Voltaire Elsewhere, London (2020); and Wrapping, Humber Street Gallery, East Yorkshire (2019). Kalu’s works are held in the Tate Collection (UK) and the Arts Council Collection (UK). In 2025, she won the Turner Prize.

Kalu’s positionality in the art world—as a woman artist with a complex learning disability and limited verbal communication—and the implicit challenges this renders are key to navigating this research project. Recent curatorial frameworks for Kalu’s practice have included an emphasis on care within her process for her current solo exhibition at Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway, while her inclusion in the survey exhibition Conversations contextualised her work within the identity framework of Black women and non-binary artists working in Britain today.

I have been working with Nnena Kalu since 2018 and have curated her work into several exhibitions, including Spring Syllabus, J Hammond Projects, London, and Kalu’s first exhibition in the United States, Fair Vanity, Summertime, New York (2020). I also featured Kalu in my book Nonconformers: A New History of Self-Taught Artists (Yale University Press, 2022).

Nnena Kalu has developed her practice at ActionSpace’s studio at Studio Voltaire since 1999. She is represented by Arcadia Missa.