Zineb Sedira to unveil major new work for Tate Britain commission 2026
Zineb Sedira (b. 1963, France) has been announced as the next artist to undertake the prestigious Tate Britain Commission. Her commission will be unveiled on 13 May 2026 and remain on view in the neo-classical Duveen Galleries until 17 January 2027. Marking her largest UK project to date, Sedira’s work will respond to the unique architectural and historical context of the iconic Duveen Galleries, offering audiences an experience that merges the political, poetic, and personal.
Zineb Sedira 2025 Photo: Alexandra de Saint Blanquat © Zineb Sedira. Courtesy Mennour, Paris, Goodman Gallery, London and Selma Feriani, Tunis.
Over a career spanning more than three decades, Sedira has established a dynamic practice encompassing photography, video, performance, and installation. Her work draws on her Algerian heritage and personal family archives, exploring themes of memory, migration, and trauma while bridging intimate narratives with broader socio-political histories. Sedira’s installations encourage viewers to reflect on displacement and identity, simultaneously challenging dominant historical narratives and affirming human connection. As the artist notes, the commission offers an opportunity “to bring the weight of history into dialogue with the living pulse of the Pan-African experience,” imagining new stories, energies, and meanings.
Zineb Sedira, Dreams Have No Titles, 2022. Venice Biennial. Photo Thierry Bal
Born in Paris to Algerian parents, Sedira moved to London in the 1980s, studying at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Slade School of Art, before completing a research fellowship at the Royal College of Art. Her international acclaim includes representing France at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 with Dreams Have No Titles, a critically lauded installation inspired by militant cinema and her family’s immigrant journey. Sedira’s work is held in major collections including Tate, Centre Pompidou, Sharjah Art Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She joins a line of distinguished artists to have undertaken the Tate Britain Commission, following in the footsteps of Alvaro Barrington, Hew Locke, Heather Phillipson, and others who have transformed the Duveen Galleries with ambitious, site-specific projects.
Date: 13 May 2026 – 17 January 2027. Location: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. Price: Free. tate.org.uk
