Revival by Isha Bøhling – March 2026, SPACE Ilford
Revival is a site-specific artwork for the SPACE Ilford billboard commission, created by the artist Isha Bøhling. She works in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, song and sound. Recurring themes explore non-linear time patterns and our temporality, while questioning ideas around progress in our fragile climate. In the process, it exposes a certain fragility while considering the bigger picture on a micro and macro level – real and abstract.
Revival is a painting that explores overlooked histories and patterns around us, responding to the hidden River Roding that flows through Ilford. Rivers are complex systems. They shape our landscape and our cities, carve invisible contours, and sustain wildlife and natural ecosystems. However, the River Roding, like most rivers in the country, is heavily polluted and has been largely neglected and inaccessible for decades, as it flows beneath the North Circular in a densely built-up area of East London.
Through abstraction, the artist questions the relationship between the built and natural environment: how we coexist, conflict, and merge with nature. Hand-painted geometric forms repeat, intermingle, and overlap; colour and light refract and reflect; monochromatic tones blend and contrast. Luminous greens allude to algae blooms or the phosphorescent nature of chemical pollution. Crystalline shapes evoke geological micro-worlds. Symmetries are broken and mirrored. Geometric sacred art symbols reflect on the river’s ancient past. Ilford was recorded in the Domesday Book as Ilefort, referencing a river crossing formerly known as Hyle, meaning “trickling stream.” Roding comes from Hora, an Anglo-Saxon leader who settled along the river, which was sacred and vital to his community.
During research, Bøhling walked along the River Roding and met with volunteers from the River Roding Trust, a green campaign group that has had a hugely positive impact on cleaning up the river, removing waste, and planting trees and shrubs along the Roding. The Trust has won battles against Thames Water over sewage entering illegal outfalls and even sworn in court on sacred river water. The London Borough of Redbridge now plans to connect Ilford with the Roding Valley in 2026 through the GLA-funded Ilford Arrival project, alongside community projects conserving wildlife around the river and the tidal salt marsh.
Isha Bøhling is an artist who lives and works in East London. She has an MA in Fine Art from St Martins. Exhibitions and awards include the London Open at Whitechapel Gallery, the East London Painting Prize, the Freelands Foundation Award, Pierogi Gallery New York, LA County Museum, The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Gongju Biennale (South Korea), Kunstraum Baden (Zurich), Siena Arts Institute, David Risley Gallery (Copenhagen), and Man & Eve Gallery, Turps Gallery, Dilston Gallery, and Postroom in London. She has a studio space in Hackney and is working on an upcoming solo exhibition in London.
To learn more, visit:
Artist Website ishabohling.com #ishabohling
River Roding Trust riverrodingtrust.org.uk
Ilford Arrival engage.redbridge.gov.uk/ilford-arrival
Billboard commissioned by Premlata Mistry – Head of Programmes SPACE
