Jil Mandeng ‘Offside’ – A Football Art Exhibition Exploring Identity in London

As the world’s attention turns to the knockout stages of the FIFA World Cup, a new exhibition in east London asks a question that stretches far beyond the football pitch. Jil Mandeng’s Offside is a compelling football inspired art exhibition opening at BSMT Space in London. One that explores how ideas of nationality, heritage and belonging have become increasingly complex in a world shaped by migration and cultural exchange.

Opening on 2 July and running until 19 July 2026, the day of the World Cup Final. The exhibition uses football as a starting point for a much broader conversation about identity. It asks whether the traditional notion of supporting one nation still reflects the lived experience of many people today.

Beyond National Colours

International football has always been built around singular allegiance. One nation. One team. One flag. Yet for millions of people, identity is rarely so straightforward.

Born in Santiago, Chile, Mandeng’s own background reflects this complexity. With a Cameroonian-Polish father and a German mother, her work draws upon personal experience whilst exploring wider themes of migration, diaspora and cultural belonging. A graduate of Central Saint Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art. She has become known for creating works that question how identity is formed and understood.

For Offside?, football shirts become symbols of national identity whilst masks represent cultural heritage and ancestral history. By deliberately pairing them in unexpected ways, Mandeng creates visual tensions that encourage viewers to question where identity really comes from and whether loyalty can ever be defined by a single nation.

When Identity Doesn’t Fit the Rules

The exhibition’s title, Offside?, cleverly borrows one of football’s most familiar rules. Being offside means occupying the wrong position at the wrong moment. In Jil Mandeng’s Offside exhibition, the artist transforms this sporting phrase into something altogether more thought-provoking.

Who decides where someone belongs?

For people with mixed heritage, multiple nationalities or lives lived across different cultures, the answer is rarely simple. Support for a football team might be inherited through family, shaped by birthplace, influenced by where someone grows up or shared across several countries simultaneously.

Rather than offering answers, ‘Offside’ invites visitors to reflect on these overlapping identities and the assumptions that often accompany ideas of nationality.

Art Meets the World Cup

The timing of the exhibition is particularly fitting. Opening as the FIFA World Cup reaches its knockout stages, this football art exhibition uses national flags, football shirts and patriotic displays as visual symbols to explore deeper questions of culture, heritage and belonging.

It’s a reminder that whilst sport often encourages us to think in terms of clear divisions and opposing sides, identity itself is rarely so easily categorised. Offside by Jil Mandeng ultimately suggests that the stories behind the shirts we wear can be far more complex than the teams we support.

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