The Walker gallery only had two artworks by Black women out of a 13,000-strong collection. A new exhibition marks the beginning of an attempt to redress the balance

Artist and curator Sumuyya Khader sits on the wooden benches of the Walker Gallery in Liverpool and scans the room. “We are surrounded by deceased white males,” she says, laughing while pointing out the portraits and landscapes on the walls around and above us.

“I was always told when I was younger to look up,” she adds. “But you get to the point where you look up and think these histories are so torrid. I want people to go in, hear the beat and the bass and be like, ‘Ohhhhh!’”