Arnolfini

✨ Join us for the preview evening of Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey at Arnolfini ✨ We’re delighted to welcome visitors to Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey, one of the headline exhibitions of Bristol Photo Festival. Bringing together more than 150 photographs, films, installations and textile works, this landmark exhibition spans four decades of Joy Gregory’s pioneering practice. The exhibition explores themes including race, gender, beauty, migration, language and cultural memory, offering a powerful reflection on both personal and collective histories. Join us for an evening of art, conversation and celebration as we open the exhibition and kick off Bristol Photo Festival’s Opening Week. 🎟️ Book your free tickets: https://lnkd.in/e3Jspj3p The evening continues from 8pm with the Bristol Photo Festival Opening Party in Arnolfini Theatre, featuring a special live performance from three of Bristol’s most compelling musical artists. 🎶 We look forward to celebrating the exhibition, Joy Gregory’s extraordinary contribution to photography, and the start of this year’s festival with you. Image credit: Joy Gregory, Stockwell Siren from the series ‘Celebrity Blonde’ 2003 performance © Joy Gregory #JoyGregory #CatchingFliesWithHoney #BristolPhotoFestival #Photography #ContemporaryArt #BristolEvents #Arnolfini

We’re delighted to share that Jonathan Baldock: Held at Arnolfini has been featured in Frieze’s latest exhibition review, 'Must-See: Jonathan Baldock Offers a Bear Hug'. Writing for Frieze, Hannah Clugston explores how Baldock unravels and reinvents folklore, horror and nature, weaving personal experience into a world of strange encounters. 🔗 Read the full review at Frieze: https://lnkd.in/e9AZM_w6 Jonathan Baldock: Held continues at Arnolfini until Sunday 27 September 2027. Free entry. #JonathanBaldock #Held #Arnolfini #Frieze #ContemporaryArt #BristolArt #Exhibition

📣 We’re hiring: Senior Marketing and Communications Manager We’re looking for an experienced communications and marketing leader to shape how Arnolfini connects with audiences — from exhibitions and live events to the wider visitor experience. This is an exciting time to join us, with the opportunity to lead our marketing and communications while helping shape the next phase of Arnolfini’s brand and digital development. The details: 📍 Bristol (minimum three days per week on-site) 💷 Up to £45,000 per annum, depending on experience 📄 Permanent | Full time (37.5 hours per week) 🗓️ Applications close: 12:00pm (midday), Wednesday 26 August 2026 If you’re an experienced communications and marketing leader who wants to help shape how one of Bristol’s best-known cultural organisations connects with its audiences, we’d love to hear from you. 👉 Find out more and apply: https://lnkd.in/e-RGNnEZ Please share with anyone in your network who might be interested. #Hiring #MarketingJobs #CommunicationsJobs #BristolJobs #ArtsJobs #CulturalJobs #Bristol #Arnolfini

For 80 years, the Arts Council Collection has been built on a simple but ambitious idea: that the best contemporary art should belong to everybody, everywhere. As Arts Council Collection celebrates its anniversary, we're delighted to see Joy Gregory's work recognised as one of its highlights—especially as Arnolfini prepares to present a major exhibition by the artist this October. 'Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey' is the first major survey of Gregory's four-decade career, bringing together more than 150 photographs, films, installations and textile works. Through photography and experimental processes, Gregory has opened up new ways of thinking about identity, beauty, history and belonging. Reflecting on her celebrated series 'Autoportrait', Gregory says: “Autoportrait was my response to the invisibility, beyond the exotic, of black women in British fashion and beauty images. Among all the self-portraits I've made, it's the only series in which the body alone is its focus…” Opening as part of Bristol Photo Festival 2026, this landmark exhibition brings one of Britain's most influential contemporary artists to Bristol. The exhibition is organised by Whitechapel Gallery, London, with Arnolfini, Bristol. 'Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey' has been generously supported by Freelands Foundation 'Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey' Arnolfini, Bristol 17 October 2026 – 7 February 2027 Free entry Image: Joy Gregory, 'Autoportrait' (1989–90). © the artist. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. #JoyGregory #ArtsCouncilCollection #BristolPhotoFestival #Arnolfini #ContemporaryPhotography #ContemporaryArt #Bristol

"The most overlooked beat in British photography isn't some far-flung conflict zone; it's the end of your nearest pier. A new exhibition at Bristol's Arnolfini looks behind the cliches and brings you the truth, with the active help of residents." A brilliant piece by Tom May is now online at Creative Boom https://lnkd.in/eMJRxJGG Polly Braden's exhibition 'Against the Tide' is open at Arnolfini until 27 September. Created in collaboration with young people from coastal towns across England as part of The Guardian Seascape series. Save the date: A companion exhibition by the young collaborators, 'Besides the Sea', opens on 1 August in gallery 5. Facilitated by Jamie Dormer-Durling (The Common Room), supported by Fiona Matthews (Super Culture). #PollyBraden #AgainstTheTide #DocumentaryPhotography #ContemporaryArt #CreativeBoom #CoastalTowns

Here's to new exhibitions, new partnerships and a summer of art. ☀️ Last Friday, hundreds of you came to celebrate the opening of #JonathanBaldock's Held and Polly Braden's Against the Tide, alongside the launch of our refreshed café bar in partnership with Wiper and True and FED. With speeches, a live dance performance from #HouseofWingz, live DJ sets and galleries full of conversation, it was a wonderful evening on Bristol Harbourside. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us. Both exhibitions are now open, with free entry all summer. Film by Courtney Knowles #BristolArts #ContemporaryArt #ArtExhibition #SummerInBristol #WhatsOnBristol #JonathanBaldock #PollyBraden #WiperAndTrue #VisitBristol

We had a truly joyful time opening our summer exhibitions at Arnolfini over the weekend ☀️ A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, and to the artists, partners and Arnolfini team who helped bring these exhibitions to life. Now open until 27 September, both exhibitions are free to visit. Jonathan Baldock: Held opened to a 5-star review from The Guardian and transforms the galleries into a colourful, immersive world of sculpture, textiles, scent and sound, centred around a monumental bear sculpture that invites you into a direct physical encounter. Polly Braden: Against the Tide presents a major new body of documentary photography created in collaboration with young people growing up in some of England's most deprived and often overlooked coastal communities, foregrounding resilience, ambition and hope. Alongside the exhibitions, there's a programme of talks, tours, workshops and events throughout the summer. Find out what's on via Arnolfini What's On. Photography by Dan Weill #JonathanBaldock #PollyBraden #Arnolfini #ContemporaryArt #BristolArt

’It can flip quickly from being idyllic’: the reality of life for young van dwellers priced out of Cornwall’s housing market Read the latest in the 'Against the Tide' series just published by #TheGuardian 🌊 Written by Anna Fazackerley with photographs by Polly Braden https://lnkd.in/eEGX7c6R Meet Polly and some of the young people who have been involved in the series, at tomorrow evening's preview of the exhibition 'Against the Tide' at Arnolfini - all welcome! The exhibition runs continues to 27 September in Bristol and from 1 October to 1 March 2027 at Firstsite in Colchester

Remembering Annabel Rees, Co-Founder of Arnolfini It is with great sadness that we share news of the passing of Arnolfini co-founder Annabel Rees. Annabel was 19 when she helped to set up Arnolfini with Jeremy Rees (whom she would later marry), and the painter John Orsborn. We fondly remember her as a highly intelligent, witty and kind woman, deeply immersed in the arts. Arnolfini would not have been the same without her. We send our warmest sympathies to her daughters Natasha and Justine, and to all her family and loved ones. "Few of us have the chance to do something truly remarkable in our lives, but Annabel did. Her talent, vision and passion were essential to the founding of Arnolfini, and her legacy lives on in the organisation today." – Suzanne Rolt, Director, Arnolfini Read the full tribute via our website: https://lnkd.in/eUGvsewW Image 1: A portrait of Annabel Rees in front of artwork by Sister Corita Kent at the exhibition preview: Still I Rise at Arnolfini, 13 September 2019. Photographer Lisa Whiting Image 2: Inaugural opening evening at Arnolfini, 3rd March, 1961, l-r Annabel Lawson (later Rees), Jeremy Rees, John Orsborn. The painting is by Peter Swan. Photographer unknown