Yuki Kihara in conversation with Tamsin Hong and Ross Brooks

Join acclaimed artist Yuki Kihara for a talk on her current exhibition Darwin in Paradise Camp, currently showing at the Whitworth.

Yuki Kihara will be joined by curator and writer Tamsin Hong and science historian Ross Brooks to reflect on her recent video work Darwin Drag (2025). Together they will explore the intersection between contemporary art, Indigenous histories and queer perspectives on science.

Introduced by Poppy Bowers, Senior Curator (Exhibitions) at the Whitworth.

📅 Thursday 11 December 2025

⏰ 6:30pm-7:30pm

📍the Whitworth

🎟️ Book your free tickets now

About the speakers

Yuki Kihara

Yuki Kihara is a conceptual artist working and living in Sāmoa. She uses photography, performance, moving image, sculpture and archival research to confront the ways in which Western art history as a domineering force has presented the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific – particularly third gender communities in Sāmoa, which have historically been marginalized in the advent of colonialism. Kihara gained recognition following a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manahatta New York in 2008, and in 2022, she represented the Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale to critical acclaim. Kihara’s exhibition Darwin in Paradise Camp is currently on display at the Whitworth until 1 March 2026.

Tamsin Hong

Tamsin Hong (she/her) is a contemporary international art curator based in London. Hong’s research interests include women’s knowledge systems, embodied practices, and re-indigenising approaches. Born on unceded Ngunnawal Country on the land now known as Australia, Hong is Exhibitions Curator at Serpentine, London. Her recent projects Arpita Singh: Remembering (2025), Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States (2024) and Georg Baselitz: Sculptures 2011-2015 (2023). As Assistant Curator at Tate Modern, Hong worked on performance, African, and Australian acquisitions and exhibitions.

Ross Brooks

Dr Ross Brooks (he/him) is an Associate Lecturer in History at Oxford Brookes University. He has been integral in developing queer perspectives in the history of science and his reappraisal of the sexological ideas of Charles Darwin has been especially influential. He appears in the pioneering nature documentary Queer Planet and his first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press next year.

About the venue

The Whitworth is a venue with level access throughout, and facilities to support you during your visit. Alongside this our visitor team will be on hand to assist you in the gallery. Find out more about planning your visit to the Whitworth and accessibility information for you.

If you’d like to speak to a team member about any access or additional needs, please get in touch with the gallery and we will be happy to assist you. Email whitworth@manchester.ac.uk or telephone 0161 275 7450.

The Whitworth art gallery and gardens is driven by a mission to work with communities to use art for positive social change, and actively addresses what matters most in people’s lives. We are proudly part of The University of Manchester, operating as a convening space between the University and the people of the city.