Bobby Ingham is an interdisciplinary artist and electronic musician born in Leeds. I came to know his work in 2023 through the Conditions Studio Programme (Croydon), in which he participated until 2024. This introduction emerges from our ongoing dialogue and our mutual investment in experimental sound as an element that goes beyond the sonic, conjuring visual and atmospheric worlds. Bobby’s work moves between DJing, performance, and composition, drawing on lineages of UK garage, old school grime, and spoken word, while remaining anchored in a deeply personal archive. The first work I ever came across of his featured recordings of his grandmother and grandfather, familial inherited histories, and fragments of his and his friends’ lived experiences. Across these materials, sound becomes visual, embodied and spatially charged. The first draft of what later would become his album, ‘ANGEL OF THE NORTH’ was played off of a CDJ 100 Pioneer, a piece of equipment that came out in 1998. Bobby’s work often has what I would call historiographical portals. Through his reinterpretation of the sounds of the time, and their amalgamation with personal history and contemporary experience, ANGEL OF THE NORTH becomes a deep reflection on the history of electronic music, Bobby’s recent past and our present.
The atmosphere of Bobby’s work often references the North of England, and is imbued with a tinge of homesickness. With references to his hometown of Leeds, the Yorkshire Moors and UK Rave Culture, it brings together a fog of psychogeographic reflections and journeys that belong in a lineage populated by writer Mark Fisher, musician Burial and artist Mark Leckey. The Englishness he refers to is complex, built within a critique of patriotism, racism and coloniality and is disarming in its directness. The sixth track, on the seven track album titled 1st Memory Of Love For DRXSJKFL features lyrics and delivery by Wakefield-based artist, Pretty V. It references a soldier who dies for England, reduced to a number, bringing into sharp focus the dehumanising nature of the military industrial complex.
In his 2023 performance of ANGEL OF THE NORTH at ICA he invited dancer and artist Zahra Van Nguyen to collaborate on a work that explored the album's visual dimension. Bobby was behind the decks for most of the performance, until the very end when he walked into the middle of the room, amongst the crowd, to dance. It was an exhilarating moment in which his position as ‘musician’ was temporarily expanded beyond the confines of the decks and into the crowd. Operating almost as a hallucination his presence amongst the crowd was emotive, similar to that 4am feeling in the club or the rave, where at the same time, you are your most alone and your most collective. Fewer people are chatting, more people are dancing, and the room feels really together. In a recent film work, the component of movement and dance is extended as Bobby and Zahra perform as angels, or angelic figures. The gestures are sourced from the dance style ‘cutting shapes’ which he grew up with. The figure of the angel is one connected to flight and weightlessness. This is a recurring image in Bobby’s work: a figure that can lift beyond the past, escape constraints and belong in a celestial form of the past-present-future.
Bobby’s work is also about subculture and community - and the very contemporary experience of the internet as an aggregator of what is found in real life, on TV and on the radio across cultures. What I find most compelling about Bobby’s work is that by building heightened atmospheres and connecting them with personal narratives, he creates portals and entry points that break the specificity of a space, time or context. He simultaneously manages to stay true to them while inviting a broader human experience for one to connect to. His work therefore resonates on multiple registers– while it might speak to a very specific upbringing or located experience–it also sparks something relatable beyond it.
Introduction written by Sara Sassanelli
Selected exhibitions include “Angel Of The North (Film)”, Artist Film Night, ANNEX By The KoppelProject, London (2025); “Angel Of The North (Film)”, Held Up To The Light: A Variety Show, Matchstick Piehouse, London (2025); “Angel Of The North (Film)”, Conditions Exhibition, Whitgift Centre, London (2024); “Angel Of The North (Performance)”, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London (2024); “Digital Lifestyle”, Niamh Quigley's Curated Exhibition, AMP Gallery, London (2023); “Amateurs”, Goldsmiths Group Exhibition, Copeland Gallery, London (2023); “RUN”, Entropy Group Exhibition, Lieu Idéal, Paris, France (2023); “UNEARTHED”, Group Exhibition, Swiss Church in London, London (2023); “Documentary Vision”, Group Exhibition, hARTSlane, New Cross, London (2023); “entropy”, Group Exhibition, Lieu Idéal, Paris, France (2023); “Get Lost”, Unit 8, London (2023); “And When The Bells Of Memory Chime”, AMP Gallery, London (2023); and “Light Beams Under A Bridge”, Film Festival, Gasholder Park, Grand Union Canal, London (2023).
Bobby Ingham has been featured by renoun arts organizations such as The Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Fader, Plaster Magazine, NTS, Electronic Sound Magazine, DJ Mag and othersPress:
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS - Electronic Sound
Six emerging artists you need to hear: May 2026 - DJ MAG
Bobby Ingham Interview - Juno Daily