Hew Locke: what have we here?

For this exhibition at the British Museum, the artist Hew Locke has stepped into the role of curator, drawing together objects from the museum’s collection to probe its associations with Britain’s imperial past (17 October–9 February 2025). The show is the result of a two-year collaboration between the artist and museum and pays particular attention to Britain’s interactions with Africa, India and the Caribbean, including Guyana, where Locke spent his formative years. More than 150 objects are divided into four sections: ‘Sovereigns and Icons of Nationhood’, ‘Trade’, ‘Conflict’ and ‘Treasure’. Most of the items in the exhibition, which include a brightly coloured 19th-century Akawaio feather headdress from Guyana and a 16th-century watercolour of an Algonquian leader by the English artist John White, come from the collection of the museum, though several of Locke’s own creations are also interspersed throughout the show. These include The Watchers (2024), a new series of sculptural figures that appears to spy on visitors as they move through the exhibition.

Find out more from the British Museum’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary

Akawaio headdress, before 1865, Guyana. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum

Armada 6 (2019), Hew Locke. Courtesy the artist/Hales London and New York; © Hew Locke

A North Carolina Algonquian werowance (leader) (c. 1586–90), John White. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum