"when the sun bursts / when will the sun die?" (2025)
Book tickets
This iteration of PULSE focuses on the work of ICA Artist Development Resident Maite de Orbe. Across two days, de Orbe will present a work-in-progress installation in the Upper Galleries, offering audiences an opportunity to engage with research and material developed during their residency.
The installation brings together traces made across different materials, extending de Orbe’s ongoing tracing practice and incorporating their belief system, MOMOSTAR. Through direct contact between bodies and surfaces, the work explores image-making beyond representation, foregrounding intimacy and touch. Traces become a way of resisting photography while still producing images, leaving marks that both reveal and withhold. Rooted in de Orbe’s research into opacity, the work considers visibility, consumption and the body’s position within artistic production.
On the opening evening of 21 July, de Orbe will present a performance alongside an artist talk with ICA Curator Hannah Geddes. The second day will include an open studio and further opportunities to experience the installation. The open studio will offer insight into the installation’s development and the artist’s wider research into belonging and difference.
PULSE is our platform for emerging interdisciplinary and collaborative practices, supporting artists to experiment with new ideas and forms.
About Maite de Orbe, ICA's Artist Development Resident.
The installation brings together traces made across different materials, extending de Orbe’s ongoing tracing practice and incorporating their belief system, MOMOSTAR. Through direct contact between bodies and surfaces, the work explores image-making beyond representation, foregrounding intimacy and touch. Traces become a way of resisting photography while still producing images, leaving marks that both reveal and withhold. Rooted in de Orbe’s research into opacity, the work considers visibility, consumption and the body’s position within artistic production.
On the opening evening of 21 July, de Orbe will present a performance alongside an artist talk with ICA Curator Hannah Geddes. The second day will include an open studio and further opportunities to experience the installation. The open studio will offer insight into the installation’s development and the artist’s wider research into belonging and difference.
PULSE is our platform for emerging interdisciplinary and collaborative practices, supporting artists to experiment with new ideas and forms.
About Maite de Orbe, ICA's Artist Development Resident.
Bios
Maite de Orbe is a Spanish, London-based artist working with photography, performance and moving image. Combining these media, their practice is focused on the complexity of identity making, touching on sexuality, gender and queerness, belonging, migration and community. Working collaboratively with dissident communities, de Orbe’s practice uses a visual documentary language at first that then lures into fantasy and world making, by prioritising love, intimacy and sensuality.
De Orbe is a Barbican Young Visual Artist alumni (2021-23), their work has been shown at PORT Magazine, The Financial Times, The Face, Dazed, Metal Magazine and has been shown at Frieze Art Fair, Barbican Centre, ICA, Reference Point, The Horse Hospital, and Bermondsey Project Space among others.
Book tickets
Tue, 21 Jul 2026
Upper Gallery
06:30 pm
Wed, 22 Jul 2026
Upper Gallery
12:00 pm
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Upper Gallery
- The Upper Gallery is situated on the first floor of the building. A wheelchair-accessible ramp to the Upper Gallery is available via Carlton House Terrace.
- We provide Sensory Maps and Large Print Guides, these can be found at the information & sales desk
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email access@ica.art
- If you have other access requirements, need more info, or want to contact us, go to the Access Page
Tuesday 21 July, 6pm
Installation, performance & artist talk
Wednesday 22 July, 12-8pm
Installation and artist studio
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untitled, 2026
"when the sun bursts / when will the sun die?" self-portrait (2025)
"MOMOSTAR: illegible self-portrait", 2026.
