Sunflower GQ

Another universal bias relates to the human brain’s desire to take shortcuts. As with foreign accents, listeners find it more work to decipher ‘non-standard’ native accents. Because the brain has to work a bit harder, memory and comprehension can be lower – making it more likely that listeners will lean into preconceptions associated with those accents. “We are kind of lazy listeners, and we rely on stereotypes when we don’t have other things to go by,” says Sharma.

That means it’s common to make instinctive assumptions about someone’s criminality, intelligence or attractiveness based on the way they sound. People form these assumptions very early in life – for example, when children watch dim-witted cartoon characters with exaggerated Appalachian accents in the US, or Andalusian accents in Spain – and are generally linked to broader biases against the group with a particular accent. “Almost all bias related to accent is about … some social characteristic,” explains Sharma.

O Barco was originally created in 2021, and now appears in London, presented by Somerset House on the 10th anniversary of the 1-54 fair dedicated to contemporary African art. The artwork is accompanied by live performances made up of song, music and dance. "I would call it many things," Kilomba tells BBC Culture, "a sculpture, an installation, a performance and poetry. I'm not interested in one discipline in particular, but in telling stories… I first worked around the Greek myth of Antigone, a woman whose two brothers kill each other for power. The new king, Creon, allows only one to be buried in the city, while the other one is left to the dogs. To me, it became an important story about ceremony and memory, and human dignity."