At London’s ICA, Autumn Knight transforms the everyday act of complaining into a space to examine voice, authority, participation, and power.
30 September 2026
What can a complaint tell us about the structures that shape everyday life? In ‘I Can’t Complain’, New York-based interdisciplinary artist Autumn Knight brings performance, installation, video and social exchange together for her first major presentation in the UK.
Drawing on theatre, psychology, improvisation and the dynamics of human interaction, Knight approaches complaining as more than an expression of dissatisfaction. Instead, it becomes a means of asking who is heard, who is permitted to speak and what seemingly minor grievances might reveal about larger social and systemic conditions.
Across the ICA’s Lower Galleries, an audio and spatial installation creates an environment shaped by humour, intimacy and discomfort. A canopy of balloons, a recurring motif within Knight’s practice, hangs alongside architectural elements framing recorded conversations with participants about their everyday frustrations. Recent video works extend these questions, while live performances throughout the exhibition bring Knight’s investigations directly into dialogue with audiences.
Rather than searching for resolution, ‘I Can’t Complain’ gives dissatisfaction room to breathe. Knight asks audiences to consider what becomes visible when complaint is taken seriously, and how speaking, listening and responding might expose the negotiations of power embedded within ordinary encounters.
This exhibition is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, from 29 September to 29 November 2026.
