Words Matter opening event a huge success

Following 18 months of workshops, research and creative rumination, the 12 artists involved in the Words Matter exhibition finally presented their brilliant works to the public this week at a buzzing launch event here at UCL East.  

The Words Matter exhibition is part of a larger institutional response following an inquiry and subsequent apology for UCL’s harmful legacy of promoting the pseudoscience of eugenics.  

It was thrilling to see the space full of punters excited by the way that artists used joy, defiance and humour as an antidote to the difficult theme, which they had spent months investigating as part of the project.  

Many spoke to the research they undertook into the work of Francis Galton, a UCL academic from the turn of the twentieth century who is widely considered the father of eugenics, and how their practice served to counter his dangerous ideas.  

Nayana Ab – an artist from the Oracle Collective whose documentary short, Disrupting the Legacy, blends dialogue with improvised music of diasporic origin to confront eugenics thinking – elaborated on these ideas: ‘I think it’s important because the context of Francis Galton is very heavy. His legacy is heavy but the fact that we’re able to now learn that, reckon with it, and also change the conversation behind it and reclaim it is very powerful, which means that generations after us will know what he did but also know that it’s not defining us.’ 

Other artists interviewed at the opening spoke to how the legacy of eugenics thinking can still be seen in today’s political climate. Ray Young, who created an installation which functions as a fictional wellness retreat for neurodivergent people, expanded on the rise of such thinking in today’s discourse: ‘I definitely feel that with all the cuts that are going to disability allowance, and the rise of the far right... that actually, if you chart them back, they’re all things that were made prevalent by eugenics.’   

The exhibition was curated to amplified the voices of artists who, because of their identity, have been impacted by the legacy of eugenics.  

Rachel Gadsden is a disabled performance artist and painter. She spoke to her very real connection to ableist thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic when she was given an involuntary Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order as a result of her illness: ‘The piece is about the challenges to stay alive even though people might not think your life is worth living. And the sense that as an individual, taking agency of my body is saying I have as much right to be here as anybody else to survive.’ 

Words Matter will be on display in the First Floor Galleries at UCL East, Marshgate until 25 February 2026. The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse programme of free events.