Our annual festival Between the Lines returns on 13 & 20-21 May and this year we're taking over ICA, bringing together experimental and leftfield artists working in the UK, Ireland and internationally. Join us for a multi-weekender of interdisciplinary performances, with DJs, performance art, and more. There will be performances across the ICA taking place throughout the day and into the evening. 

Nabihah Iqbal returns with her long-awaited new album DREAMER. Set to be released on Ninja Tune on 28 April, it will be premiered live at the ICA on 13 May as part of this years Between the Lines Festival.

Five years on since the London-born artist, curator, broadcaster and lecturer’s debut Weighing Of The Heart was released and two years in the making, DREAMER is Nabihah’s rawest and most reflective work to date. Exploring personal identity and grief through the soft-focus lens of melancholy, the album signals a shift, elevating Nabihah’s work to new heights.

It arrives at a pivotal time for Nabihah, having recently collaborated with Chinese artist Zhang Ding; photographer Wolfgang Tillmans; composed music for the Turner Prize; and been part of a group performance at the Barbican’s major Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective. As part of her Glory To Sound project at Somerset House, she curated a series of live talks, music and club nights where the likes of historian David Olusoga, DJ Gilles Peterson and pioneering electronic artist SOPHIE explored their love for music. In 2022 Nabihah was announced as a guest director for England’s largest multi-arts festival, Brighton Festival, in 2023, her “biggest, most challenging and exciting curatorial position” to date.

This will be the first live premiere of DREAMER.

Opening the evening is Bristol-based producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist t l k. Stretching the thin fabric of selfhood, with their characteristically ethereal sound, t l k has been coined as “truly transportive” (BBC6 Music). Expect to hear music from their new EP Primed for Loss, releasing on Ishmael Ensemble's label, Severn Songs, 24 May.