A major solo exhibition by Yto Barrada to open at South London Gallery
The South London Gallery will open Thrill, Fill, Spill, a major solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist Yto Barrada, on 26 September 2025. Renowned for her cross-disciplinary practice that weaves together sculpture, textiles, film and painting, Barrada explores histories of resistance, shifting cultural identities, and environmental fragility. The exhibition’s title references a garden design formula, “Thrill, Fill and Spill”, used to create dynamic, cascading plant arrangements, which Barrada reinterprets as a metaphor for the construction of meaning within cultural and institutional spaces.
Yto Barrada, A day is a day, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery.
One of the key works to be exhibited is Tangier Island Wall (2019), made from crab traps and shown for the first time in the UK. The sculpture addresses the precarious future of Tangier Island, Virginia, where sea-level rise threatens the local crab fishing community. The open, net-like structure of the piece echoes the inhabitants’ desire for a seawall – what Barrada describes as a ‘beau geste’: a symbolic, noble gesture that may ultimately be ineffective. Alongside this, the exhibition will feature new textile works dyed at The Mothership, Barrada’s natural dye garden and residency centre in Tangier, Morocco, highlighting the artist’s engagement with slow, sustainable making.
The exhibition will also present Acrobatic Formations, a series of 14 model sculptures inspired by the tradition of human pyramids in Morocco. Once used in warfare and ritual, these formations evolved into acrobatic displays and circus acts. Barrada’s sculptural interpretations reflect the collective strength and adaptation embedded in these communal performances. Another major work, Tintin in Palestine, reimagines scenes from Hergé’s comic through a critical lens, translating colonial imagery into hand-dyed silk grids using Emily Noyes Vanderpoel’s early 20th-century colour theory.
In tandem with Barrada’s selection to represent France at the 2026 Venice Biennale, Thrill, Fill, Spill will offer audiences a timely encounter with an artist who continues to reshape how art, history and collective memory intersect.
Date: 26 September 2025 – 11 January 2026. Location: South London Gallery, 65–67 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH. Price: Free. southlondongallery.org
