Bonington Gallery is pleased to present THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, a new three-channel film by Turner Prize nominated artist Naeem Mohaiemen. The film explores memorialisation, protest, and political violence through the lens of events in May 1970, when American students protesting domestic racism and overseas wars were met by state violence.

As the Vietnam War came to its bloody end, for the American media, the memory of four American students shot dead at Kent State University was sometimes as emotionally charged as the millions of deaths in Vietnam.

In the decades that followed, a memorial community has formed around the ‘four dead in Ohio’. Yet while the deaths of students Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder at Kent State, Ohio, are remembered, not many recall Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two students killed ten days later by police officers at Jackson State College, Mississippi, a Historically Black College.

By choreographing the relationship between archival footage and contemporary ceremonies memorialising the dead, THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY explores the role of memorials as a focal point for individual and collective grief. By comparing Kent and Jackson State, the project underscores blind spots around racialised violence and class tensions, made concrete in the disparity in coverage of these two campus shootings. The inclusion of stage-managed press conferences reveals the political machinations of the Nixon administration who fuelled a backlash to anti-war protests.

Mohaiemen deftly presents these intersecting strands, weaving together the voices of key political players, student leaders, and the fabled ‘man on the street’ alongside Vietnam veterans, to propose new interpretations of the events of May 1970 and their lasting impact.

Following the inaugural London presentation of the work by Artangel at Albany House (September – December 2025), the UK tour has been convened by Film and Video Umbrella and will travel to Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2026), The Hunterian, University of Glasgow (2026), and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2026). The work will also be shown at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, in Spring 2026.

--

THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY by Naeem Mohaiemen.

Commissioned and produced by Artangel.

Commissioned in partnership with Film and Video Umbrella and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.

Supported by Experimenter.

The UK tour has been convened by Film and Video Umbrella. Exhibition Partners are The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and Bonington Gallery, Nottingham.

Artangel, FVU and John Hansard Gallery are generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England.