Spike Island
A shining light in Bristol's contemporary art scene since the 70s!
Based in a former tea packing factory, Spike Island's now home to an internationally celebrated contemporary art gallery. Hosting exhibitions, studio space, workshops and Emmeline's excellent cafe, Spike is a vibrant hub for creativity in Bristol.
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Our recent recommendations for Spike Island
An exhibition of contemporary artist Nour Jaouda’s textile practice: a syncretic combination of painting, sculpture, and installation that materializes as ‘landscapes of memory'. Her intricately layered surfaces reveal fragmented narratives from her Libyan childhood and diasporic navigation between Cairo and London, examining cultural identity as a perpetually unfolding process.
Spike Island is proud to present the first institutional solo exhibition by Libyan artist Nour Jaouda.
Spike Island’s communion with Guyanese-British artist Donald Locke’s five-decade transatlantic sprawl surveys his attempt to make sense of history with scalpel, glue stick, paint, and clay. Tracing a league of mediums and eras from Guyana to Bath to Georgetown to Edinburgh - this is colonial debris refracted through black radical materialism.
Join us for an evening preview of new Spike Island exhibition: Donald Locke - Resistant Forms
Free entry! Essential annual glimpse inside the secret spaces of Bristol’s brightest contemporary art hub. Usually hidden behind closed doors, Spike Island’s studios open their doors for you to experience works in progress from Bristol’s established and upcoming artists, one off performances, workshops and pop up food and drink (to help get those conversations going).
Spike Island launches its popular annual Open Studios with an evening of cutting-edge art and performance.
Free entry! Spike Island’s latest presents two moving image exhibitions exploring heritage and representation. Danielle Dean’s ‘Hemel’ is a horror-inspired reimagining of Hemel Hempstead’s past through archive footage and speculative narrative, while Dan Guthrie’s ‘Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure’ examines British Blackness through interrogations of material culture and tradition.
Join us for a free evening preview of new Spike Island exhibitions by Danielle Dean and Dan Guthrie.
Free entry (donations welcome though)! Outstanding doc from Julia Bacha (Boycott, Buduru) focusing on the self-organised women’s movements that sent a message of pure hope and defiance during the First Intifada. Essential education and context for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and beyond.
Join for a screening of Naila and the Uprising (2017) directed by Julia Bacha. This event is part of AFLAMUNA'S 2024 Palestine Cinema Days