An Honest Conversation, Hard to Hold: “Does It Come in Another Colour?” and “Racing Desire” at London’s ICA

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Reckitt, Helena. 2025. An Honest Conversation, Hard to Hold: “Does It Come in Another Colour?” and “Racing Desire” at London’s ICA. British Art Studies(27), ISSN 2058-5462 [Article]

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Official URL: https://britishartstudies-27.netlify.app/issues/27...

Abstract or Description

This short article was commissioned for ‘Instituting Queer Art in Britain,’ a conversation piece convened by Laura Guy and Theo Gordon as part of an issue of the Journal of British Art Studies on queer art in the UK that they co-edited with Fiona Anderson and Flora Dunster.

In the piece Helena Reckitt reflects on an artist film programme and symposium exploring inter-racial desire curated by poet and filmmaker Ian Iqbal Rashid for the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in 1993, a time when she worked as Deputy Director of ICA Talks.

Recalling the programmes and their discursive context was especially meaningful to do as both screening programme, ‘Does it come in Another Colour?’ and symposium ‘Racing Desire’ have all but disappeared from institutional memory. Drawing on conversations with Rashid, as well as with Tim Highsted, who commissioned the film programme for ICA Cinema, the piece touches on taboos of sexuality and desire and their cultural representation.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-27/conversation