Quiet Presences: Black Women’s Interiority and Simone Leigh
Entry
Past event
Date
Fri 13 Feb 2026
Time
7–8.30pm
Location
Sunley Gallery
Turner Contemporary
Simone Leigh: Recent Sculptures Guest Curator, Daniella Rose King, was joined by curator Cindy Sissokho, and poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley to explore the sculptural practice of Simone Leigh.
Guest curator Daniella Rose King was joined by curator Cindy Sissokho, and poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley (author of Quiet). This three-way dialogue explored Black women’s interiority, quietude, and intellectual and emotional labour in relation to the sculptural practice of Simone Leigh.
Bringing together curatorial, artistic, and literary voices, the event examined how Leigh’s anonymised figures embody presence and self-possession while refusing capture. The format balanced conversation with poetic and textual offerings, creating an atmosphere of tenderness and depth that connected sculpture, writing, and Black feminist thought.
About Daniella Rose King
Daniella Rose King is a curator and writer based in London. She is currently Lead Curator, Collections Galleries at Wellcome Collection. Her curatorial practice focuses on artists from the Caribbean and Black diasporas, exploring questions of place, memory and relation through feminist and ecological perspectives. She was previously Adjunct Curator, Caribbean Diasporic Art: Hyundai Tate Research Centre at Tate and guest curator of Dominique White and Alberta Whittle: Sargasso Sea (ICA Philadelphia, 2024).
About Cindy Sissokho
Cindy Sissokho (b. 1992, France) is an independent curator, cultural producer, art consultant, and writer whose practice focuses on anticolonial, social and political approaches within the arts and culture. Her curatorial work is nurtured by the urgency to broaden and disseminate knowledge and artistic production from systemically racialised and marginalised perspectives.
She is the Associate Program Director (Africa & Europe) at KADIST. She was the co-Curator of the French Pavilion at the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2024 working with artist Julien Creuzet and curator Céline Kopp. She recently worked as a Curator at the Wellcome Collection in London, where she curated the major exhibition Hard Graft: Work, Health & Rights (Sep 24-Apr25) and Expecting: Birth, Belief & Protection that opened on 24 October 2025 (closing on 19 April 2026.
About Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a poet and writer whose work has appeared widely in publications including the London Review of Books, LitHub, and The Atlantic. She is the winner of an Eric Gregory Award, and her critically acclaimed debut poetry book, Quiet, won the Folio Prize for Poetry, the John Pollard Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Quiet is published by Faber & Faber in the UK and in North America by Knopf, Penguin Random House.
