Zineb Sedira's large installation commission for the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, drawing on 1960s and 70s African cinema and the Algerian diaspora.
Zineb Sedira has a new installation, When Words Fall Silent, Cinema Speaks, running at Tate Britain from 13 May 2026 to 17 January 2027. It's her largest UK project so far, and it takes over the Duveen Galleries, the big neo-classical rooms that the Tate has been inviting contemporary artists to respond to as part of a wider series.
Sedira is a British-French-Algerian artist who's been working across photography, performance, video and installation for over three decades. Born in Paris to Algerian parents, she moved to London in 1986 and studied at Central St Martin's, the Slade and the Royal College of Art. Much of her work draws on her own family's experience within the Algerian diaspora, and she often brings together family archives and cinema history to bridge the political and the poetic, working through themes of memory, migration and trauma. In 2022, she represented France at the 59th Venice Biennale with Dreams Have No Titles.
This commission looks to 1960s and 70s African cinema and centres on Algeria after its independence in 1962. Sedira reimagines a cinema staged in four acts, and the installation features the voice of Boudjema Kareche, who ran the Cinémathèque Algérienne from 1973 to 2004. It's a piece that sits right in that space she's spent her career in: the intersection of personal history, national memory and the moving image.
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It's on for a long stretch, so there's plenty of time to fit it in. The galleries are open 10:00 to 18:00 daily, and entry is free. You'll find it at Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG.
