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Tate Modern Performance

A Map of the Pit

7 March 2025 at 18.30–21.30

Original image from Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica (1556), modified by James Richards

Explore an evening of moving image and performances at the closing event of Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound, guest-curated with artist James Richards

Mire Lee examines how industrial and post-industrial landscapes affect the human body. Using a wide range of materials, Lee creates works that provoke deep, emotional reactions. Over six months, Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound has transformed Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall into what she describes as an ‘industrial womb,' brought to life by both kinetic machines and human effort. Blending moments from industrial history with surrealist themes, Lee uncovers human dreams and desires within vast technological systems.

For over a decade James Richards has developed a distinct practice rooted in the collage of images and sound, driven by a commitment to the role of desire in an increasingly mediated reality. With a sensitivity to intensities generated by different spaces and exhibitionary formats, Richards is also known for collaborations where he moves fluidly between the role of artist, composer and curator, with attempts to, in his own words, ‘find the porous line between inside and outside, self and other, the body and the world.’ 

Building on the shared interests of Lee and Richards, A Map of the Pit combines collage techniques in an experiment across disciplines and media. It includes new live performances and presentations by Gary A Boyd, Megan Fernandes & Sa’dia Rehman, and Lucy Beech + Sarah Dacey and Rosie Middleton; and films by Jumana Manna, Errol Morris, James Richards, Amina Ross, and P.Staff. It takes the audience on a journey through various landscapes and moods, from Britain’s coalfields to East Jerusalem to Shanghai’s streets at night, from slaughterhouse architecture to the glow of phone screens.

The evening programme is co-curated by artist James Richards and Tate curator Alvin Li, with support from Bilal Akkouche.

The programme is two hours, divided into two parts, with a 30-min intermission. Please find programme details below.

Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound in partnership with Hyundai Motor. With support from The Mire Lee Supporters, The Mire Lee Supporters Circle and Tate Americas Foundation.

The Hyundai Commission: Mire Lee: Open Wound: Closing Programme: A Map of the Pit is supported by Cherry Xu / CHERUBY.

Part I 

Gregg Bordowitz, Gone Missing 2024, HD Video, colour, sound, 2 min 30 sec, English with English subtitles

A welcome, a summoning.

P. Staff, HEVN 2022, HD video, colour, sound, 5 min, English with English subtitles

An intoxicating mix of hand-painted film and digital footage, layered with poetry and industrial sounds. In HEVN, P. Staff continues their exploration of the fragility and resilience of queer and trans bodies.

Errol Morris, Stairway to Heaven 2001, HD video, colour, sound, 23 min 25 sec, English with English subtitles

This short documentary focuses on Temple Grandin, an autistic scientist and activist known for her innovative work in animal welfare. As part of Morris’ First Person series, the film explores Grandin’s ‘visual thinking’—a way of understanding the world that shaped her groundbreaking designs for humane livestock handling.

Megan Fernandes & Sa’dia Rehman, IF THE NSA CALLS, I’M WRITING ABOUT CLOWNS 2025, HD video, colour, sound, 2 min 30 sec, English with English subtitles

In early 2025, Fernandes and Rehman asked twenty Black, brown, and queer friends in the U.S. to share personal stories about an open wound. The resulting video weaves together a longform poem by Fernandes and a collage of footage by Rehman.

Gary A. Boyd, Autochthonousity: Disenchantment & Displacement in Mining Earth and Bodies 2025, lecture performance, 17 min, English with BSL interpretation

A newly conceived presentation for Tate Modern, Boyd draws on history, literature, and original research to examine the deep connections between coal mining, architecture, and social formation. His insights provide a critical backdrop to Mire Lee’s Hyundai commission.

Part II

James Richards, Negative Hands 2024, HD video, black and white, sound, with English subtitles

Richards overlays subtitles from Marguerite Duras’s 1979 film Les mains négatives onto Tony Conrad’s 1966 experimental film Flicker. Conrad’s analog classic is re-made here as a digital ‘surrogate’—an homage, a love letter, a flickering meditation on memory and desire.

Amina Ross, Man’s Country 2021, HD video, colour, sound, 8 min 02 sec, English with English subtitles

Man’s Country is an imaginary queer bathhouse named after an existing one in Chicago—a space for rethinking masculinity, belonging, and personhood. This video maps out the space, drawing from Ross’ research into underground queer venues and utopian possibilities.

Jumana Manna, Blessed Blessed Oblivion 2010, HD video, colour, sound, Arabic with English subtitles

Inspired by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), Manna’s film is a portrait of male ‘thug’ culture in Palestine. At once parodic and sincere, it captures a scene of masculinity through material culture and media, critiquing stereotypes while embracing their seductiveness.

Megan Fernandes, Sonnets of the False Beloveds with One Exception or Repetition Compulsion 2023, live reading and HD video, colour, sounds, with English subtitles

Fernandes’ reading features a crown of sonnets, each named after a different city. In Fernandes’ ferocious, accelerated prose, cities emerge no longer as bare backdrops to their depicted scenes of transient desire, but as stages, witnesses.

Lucy Beech and James Richards, A Map of The Pit 2025, HD video with live accompaniment, performed by Sarah Dacey and Rosie Middleton

An experimental collaboration combining moving image and live performance featuring covers of I Want You to Know Me by White Light, and Still They Move by Sarah Neufeld and Colin Stetson.

Below are biographies of participants working on new commissions only. The full list of artists will be shared at the event.

Lucy Beech

Lucy Beech is an artist whose practice revolves around collaboration and encompasses filmmaking, choreography, research, and writing. Forthcoming and recent presentations of their work include: New Musuem, NY (2025) Between Bridges Berlin, DE; Museum of Contemporary Art Bordeaux, FR; Fondazione MAST Bologna, IT (2024); and Kunstinstituut Melly, NL; among others. 

Gary A. Boyd

Gary A. Boyd is Professor of Architecture at University College Dublin. His monograph Architecture and the Face of Coal: Mining and Modern Britain (published by Lund Humphries) won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion for contribution to architectural history in 2023.

Megan Fernandes 

Megan Fernandes is a writer living in NYC. Her third book of poetry, I Do Everything I’m Told (Tin House 2023), was named a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, Vogue, The Rumpus, ElectricLit, LitHub, etc. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of English and the Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette College where she teaches courses on poetry and critical theory. 

Sa’dia Rehman 

Sa’dia Rehman (all pronouns) is a nomadic multidisciplinary artist. Notable exhibitionss and residencies include: The New Art Gallery Walsall, Wexner Center for the Arts, Pakistan National Council of the Arts, ArtLab at Harvard University, Art Omi, and Edward Albee Foundation.

James Richards

James Richards was born in 1983 in Cardiff, Wales, and is based in Berlin. His practice includes moving image, music, and curatorial projects. Richards was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2014. In 2017 he represented Wales at the 57th Venice Biennale and was awarded the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2024.

This event will be BSL interpreted.

All Tate Modern entrances are step-free. You can enter via the Turbine Hall and into the Natalie Bell Building on Holland Street, or into the Blavatnik Building on Sumner street.

There are lifts to every floor of the Blavatnik and Natalie Bell buildings. Alternatively you can take the stairs.

  • Fully accessible toilets are located on every floor on the concourses.
  • A quiet room is available to use in the Natalie Bell Building on Level 4.
  • Ear defenders can be borrowed from the Ticket desks.

To help plan your visit to Tate Modern, have a look at our visual story. It includes photographs and information about what you can expect from a visit to the gallery.

Download Tate Modern map PDF

For more information before your visit:

  • Email hello@tate.org.uk
  • Call +44 (0)20 7887 8888 (daily 10.00–17.00)

Check all Tate Modern accessibility information

Tate Modern

Starr Cinema

Bankside
London SE1 9TG
Plan your visit

Date & Time

7 March 2025 at 18.30–21.30

Content guidance: This performance contains flashing lights and features images of animals in slaughterhouses

In partnership with

Supported by

The Mire Lee Supporters

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea, Korea Arts Management Service, and the grant program Fund for Korean Art Abroad

Richard Chang

Yan Du

Lonti Ebers

The Mire Lee Supporters Circle

Tina Kim Gallery

Antenna Space

Sprüth Magers

The Peter Magnone Foundation

Mondriaan Fund

Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins

Eleanor and Francis Shen

Victoria Bruhn

Wendy Lee

Dina Liu

Allison Berg

Kahng Foundation

Lisa Kim and Eunu Chun

Dana and Gregory Lee

Kyungsoon Lee and Jungwoo Shon

Teresa Tsai

Yoonjung and Edouard Ullmo

Margaret Wang

Yang Won Sun Foundation

Hee Yoon

Salle Yoo and Jeff Gray

Tate Americas Foundation

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