MAM Project 034: Sonia Boyce

MAM Project 034: Sonia Boyce features the Japanese premiere of Devotional Wallpaper and Placards (2008-2020) by acclaimed British multimedia artist Sonia Boyce DBE RA - marking her first solo institutional presentation in the country.

Born in London to parents from Guyana and Barbados, Boyce emerged in the early 1980s as a central figure in Britain’s Black Arts Movement. Her practice spans film, photography, drawing, sound and installation to examine the diasporic experience and explore collective authorship.
MAM Project 034 focuses on Devotional Wallpaper and Placards, the most expansive iteration of Boyce’s ongoing “Devotional” series. “Devotional” began in 1999 when the artist collaborated with Liverpool Black Sisters; during a workshop she invited participants to recall the first record they bought and to name a Black British female singer. This experience prompted Boyce to create a living archive celebrating overlooked Black British female performers. Over the next two decades she collected records, magazine covers and memorabilia donated by members of the public.

By 2020, this communal effort had grown into a room-scale installation comprising a wallpaper densely printed with the names of 200 Black female musicians. In front of these walls lean 100 placards; each placard displays photographs, magazine articles and other ephemera from Boyce’s wider archive.

The installation functions as an act of cultural archaeology and a form of knowledge-building. By being displayed in Japan for the first time, it introduces audiences to an important archive of Black British women’s voices while also connecting to Japan’s own long history of engagement with celebrating Black music and culture—a history that, from the 1960s onwards saw jazz, soul, and R&B find devoted followings and shaped districts such as Roppongi, known for its clubs, discos and nightlife.

At the same time, the work’s participatory spirit continues. Each presentation of “Devotional” invites audiences to see themselves as part of the archive—witnessing, remembering, and carrying forward these stories and names. In this way, the archive is never static; it is sustained in the minds of viewers as they engage, reflect and contribute to its ongoing life.