Arnolfini announces ambitious exhibition programme for 2025

Arnolfini has announced a major year of exhibitions for 2025, led by “four extraordinary artists” of spanning a rich variety of disciplines, “each addressing complex questions about the world in which we live”.

Opening the spring programme, Turner Prize-nominated British artist Barbara Walker’s survey exhibition Being Held comes to the gallery in March, following a successful run at The Whitworth.

The collection introduces visitors to nearly 60 works made in the last three decades, from delicate graphite drawings to embossed reliefs. Together, they are emblematic of Walker’s prevailing creative interests, and her unwavering dedication to “creating space for Black presence, power and belonging”.

Barbara Walker, End of the Affair, 2023.
A sketched self portrait of the artist Barbara Walker depicted as her take on the Greek mythology Leda and the Swan. The image is in mono save from red on Barbara Walker’s t-shirt, bleeding down into her skirt. She stands looking straight on, arms folded in front of a skeletal swan.
Graphite, charcoal, pastel and conte on paper – photo: Chris Keenan @primeobjective. Courtesy of the artist and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London.

Looking to the summer, Arnolfini will host twin exhibitions: one from British artist Sahara Longe in her first institutional solo show, and the other from Dana Awartani, who is Saudi Arabian born and of Palestinian descent, and has never before mounted a solo exhibition in Europe.

Longe will be showing hugely expansive and semi-abstract paintings, including two spanning four metres in length. Awartani’s practice harnesses traditional craft-making techniques to explore ideas of collective healing and cultural sustainability. Amongst the work in this collection will be her Venice Biennale commission Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2024).

Dana Awartani, Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones, 2024.
A colour photograph of the installation by the artist consisting of various orange and yellow, rectangular shapes, semi-transparent material and overlapping one another to form the overall shape.
Commissioned for the Venice Biennale in 2024 – photo: © Dana Awartani

Showing a rich variety of pieces that range from drawing to silk painting, and sculpture to animation, Emma Talbot will be looking at the complex relationship between humanity, nature and technology through her Autumn installation, co-commissioned with Copenhagen Contemporary.

She uses her work to ask: Are you a living thing that is dying or a dying thing that is living?/Everything is Energy.

Emma Talbot, In the end, the beginning, 2023.
A colour photograph of Emma Talbot’s huge installation in a gallery space, with someone stood by to give a sense of scale.
Installation view, Kesselhaus, KINDL, © Emma Talbot – photo: Jens Ziehe

Gemma Brace is head of exhibitions at Arnolfini, and is excited about the scale and ambition of the upcoming openings. “Our exhibitions programme for the year ahead reflects the diversity and complexity of contemporary life,” she enthuses, “asking questions about identity, presence, conflict, cultural heritage, technological progress and societal alienation – whilst creating a platform for artists at multiple stages of their career and celebrating the many communities that we represent.”

As ever, for each major exhibition held at the gallery, there will be an ancillary programme of workshops, activities, live events, and tours for visually impaired audiences.

Arnolfini gallery – photo: Martin Booth

Barbara Walker: Being Held is at Arnolfini from March 8-May 25. Twin summer exhibitions from Sahara Longe and Dana Awartani will be open from June 28-September 28, with Emma Talbot heading up the Autumn programme, from October 18-February 8 2026.

All exhibitions are free, with donations welcome. The gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-6pm. More information is available at www.arnolfini.org.uk.

Main photo: Composite image of Barbara Walker, End of the Affair, 2023 (photo: Chris Keenan) and Sahara Longe, Bad Dreams, 2024 (photo: courtesy of the artist and Timothy Taylor)

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