Under Archives
Dates: 15 November – 7 December
Public opening event: Friday 14 November, 6-9pm
Gallery hours: Thursday – Sunday, 1-6pm
Admission: Free
Under Archives is SET 91’s third exhibition, co-curated by Ellie Dobbs and Verity Monroe, and is presented in dialogue with the 2025 SET Film Festival, taking place at SET Social in Peckham, from 6 November-4 December.
The exhibition features works by Leily Moghtader Mojdehi, Halina Edwards, Harmeet Singh Rahal, Veronica Bello, Mya Cavner, Francesca Telling, Toulip Wonder, and the Sri Lankan Archive Collective. Toulip Wonder and the Sri Lankan Archive Collective developed their collaborative work through a workshop facilitated by Michelle Rodrigues.
About the exhibition
Bringing together seven international research-based artists and the Sri Lankan Archive Collective, Under Archives explores the personal and collective dimensions of archiving. The exhibition highlights practices that expose and resist decades of inequities, neglect, and erasure in the process of archiving and remembering, questioning whose narratives are protected and whose are obscured.
Some works originate from London’s National Archives, the UK governments official archive, containing material collected over the last 1,000 years. Artists engaging with these archives address specific colonial histories embedded within institutional records, which have historically been complicit in erasure under imperialist and bureaucratic systems.
Other works adopt a community-oriented approach to archiving, exploring how lived experience is projected onto intergenerational histories. Through both collective and personal grief, artists present their research and practice as forms of collaborative action, where reflection becomes a politicised tool.
Across both these approaches, artists bring impactful histories to light, challenging the administrative and authoritarian frameworks that have long dictated how archives are built and remembered. In doing so, they reclaim the archive: both as a living, participatory space and as a site of resistance, continually shaped by our collective lives and actions.
Curators
Ellie Dobbs and Verity Monroe
Acknowledgements
Under Archives is realised with the support of the Exhibition Hub, Department of Art, Goldsmiths College.
Programme
Under Archives marks the third part of a six-month programme of curated shows at SET 91. This programme is led by the SET curatorial team, SET studio members, and invited guest curators, and encompasses exhibitions, performance, moving-image research, and cross-disciplinary projects.
More details on future exhibitions will be announced soon.
Follow @set91set on Instagram and join our mailing list for updates.
Sign upAbout the space
SET 91 is SET’s first in-house curated contemporary arts gallery, located in Old Street. Dedicated to supporting early-career contemporary artists, the gallery provides a non-profit platform for experimentation, collaboration, and the presentation of new work beyond commercial pressures.
Learn moreAbout the SET Film Festival
SET Film Festival is an alternative, grassroots platform for contemporary, artist, and archival film, curated by Amina Ali, Ellie Dobbs, and Verity Monroe. Now in its third edition, the month-long festival unfolds across six themed nights at SET Social, Peckham, presenting a wide mix of genres, from animation and documentary to experimental and artists’ moving image.
This year, the festival runs every Thursday from 6 November to 4 December, with an additional night on Saturday 29 November.
Learn moreContact us
For general enquiries, email ninetyone@setspace.uk
For press enquiries, email press@setspace.uk
Follow us on Instagram at @set91set
Address: 91 Tabernacle Street, Old Street, London, EC2A 4JN