Today we announce our next exhibition, ‘Table for One’ by Vincen Beeckman (@beeckmanvincen ):
In 2011, Beeckman was invited to create a project in Dudelange, an industrial commune on the Luxembourg–France border. On his first day, he stopped for lunch at Hang Chow, a local Chinese restaurant named after Hangzhou, the owner's original hometown. During his meal, Beeckman had an idea: he would eat lunch and dinner at Hang Chow every day for a week, letting the staff choose his dishes. At the same time, he would photograph the restaurant. What began as an experiment has unfolded into a multi-chapter project, with Beeckman collaborating with restaurants across six countries - from Brazil to Iran, via Rwanda. In 2024, Beeckman spent a week in Bristol, eating lunch and dinner at Dragon’s Delicacy, St. Werburghs. The exhibition will present his work from Bristol, alongside a selection from the wider project.
Join us for the opening night: ARTIST TALK (6-7pm, East Bristol Books), EXHIBITION Preview (7-8.30pm, IC Visual Lab). Tickets for the talk and preview are available via the link in our bio.
We are very excited to co-host this event with our lovely neighbours East Bristol Books on Tuesday 6pm.
Dont sit waiting, few tickets left. Tickets on @ebb_bristol bio.
Dan Hicks' new work tears through the polished facades of museums and monuments to expose a grimy world of colonial loot, skull collections, and academic gatekeeping. Alongside ancient historian Mai Musié, he discusses how we frame – and how we can reframe – our material culture and heritage
*Every Monument Will Fall: a story of remembering and forgetting* compares the memorialisation of colonisers and enslavers in statues and monuments with the treatment of human remains in museums and universities, and makes the case for the democratic right of societies and communities to re-shape their memory culture, defining who is remembered, and why, and how.
Bios:
Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a fellow of St Cross College Oxford. His books include *The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution* (Pluto Press 2020) and *Every Monument Will Fall: a story of remembering and forgetting* (Penguin 2025).
Instagram/Bluesky: @ProfDanHicks
Website:
Join us to celebrate the opening of our latest exhibition, telling the story of a protest movement that erupted across Nepal in September 2025.
For months, anger built online over the children of political elites, who regularly flaunted their wealth through posts of cars, jewels and luxury travel. The hashtag #NepoBaby began circulating, used to call out the clear corruption on display.
When the government blocked access to social media, young people took to the streets to demand accountability. Violence followed, with police opening fire on unarmed students, tragically killing 22. In the aftermath, the weight of anger forced the prime minister to resign, with promises of further changes to follow.
Afterwards, Nepal Point - a local photography organisation - gathered images taken by protesters to create a social archive of the movement. We will present this archive, alongside texts and other materials.
Join us for the exhibition opening on Wed 27th May, from 6pm, including drinks, music and a tour of the exhibition. The opening is free but please reserve your space via Headfirst (link in bio).
🎤 Sound Event Announcement 🎤 Ghost in the Karaoke Machine 🎤
Join us on Tuesday 30th June for an evening with artist Sadia Pineda Hameed, unpacking the colonial echoes that can be heard in Filipino music.
Sadia’s mum came to the UK in the 1970s to work as a nurse and found community by joining a dance troupe, Lei Aloha, performing Filipino and Hawaiian music across the UK.
Starting with her memories of Lei Aloha, Sadia will explore the sounds of the Philippines, from the rise of Kundiman - a form of love ballad that emerged under Spanish colonial rule - to the rise of Hawaiian music, popular amongst the American soldiers and migrant workers who moved back and forth across the pacific.
Throughout the evening, we will discuss karaoke - a national pastime in the Philippines - as a postcolonial strategy; how renditions allow us to hold both our own stories and the echoes of the past.
The conversation will be accompanied by projections, drawn from Sadia’s artworks and archives.
Tickets are on a sliding scale from £6-8, available via Headfirst (link in bio). Please book early - if we sell out quickly we’ll add a second show.
Festival Announcement // Save the Date
🔈️ Bristol Photo Festival returns this autumn for its third edition: 'Time Machine' ⏳
Following a second edition that welcomed over 115,000 visitors, the international biennial of contemporary photography returns across Bristol’s major cultural institutions, independent venues and unconventional spaces. Entitled ‘Time Machine’ this edition will explore how time loops and folds, from echoes of the past to dreams of worlds to come.
Opening week: 📍 14–18 October 2026
Exhibitions continue until: 📍 15 November 2026 (selected presentations will continue beyond this date)
Get the dates in your diary and stay tuned for further announcements. The artistic programme will be announced in early July.
Main cultural partners include: @arnolfiniarts@martinparrfoundation@watershedbristol alongside @bristolmuseums , @uwebristol , @hellobrigstow , @universityofbristol and many independent arts and community organisations.
More information (link in bio)
bristolphotofestival.org
We finally have the @timeisaway cassette tapes in our hands. The recording is from a live score produced to accompany @rinkokawauchi 's film illuminance, presented to mark the opening of @bristolphotofestival in 2024.
The tapes are available to buy in-person only. Our next event is tomorrow (Thursday) night with @____jc_leisure . At the time of writing, there are about 3 tickets left, so do grab one quick if you want to come.
If you can't make it to Bristol, do let us know via DM. We're nice people and might offer to post you one (please don't swap Jack and Elaine!).
Thanks to all who made this happen, especially @inis.eto and @tesco.f
Next week (Thu 7 May) we welcome @____jc_leisure to explore the history of animals within music. We'll explore early origins: from amateur radio enthusiasts to the role of underwater military technology. We'll explore the divide between 'music' and 'sound', asking why some creatures are considered musical while others are unfairly described as noise. And we'll look at how artists have attempted to cross boundaries, convening experimental human-animal assemblies. We don't yet know what direction the evening will take us in, but we're sure it'll be a great journey.
There are a handful of tickets left, grab yours now via headfirst (link in bio).
📸 are some possible starting points: Simone Forti, Jim Nollman, Chim Pom, Nam June Paik, Annea Lockwood, and Henning Christensen.
To mark the opening of @brsphotofest 2024, we invited @timeisaway to create a live score to accompany @rinkokawauchi 's film Illuminance. Reviving the tradition of the mixtape, we're happy to announce that we're now releasing the score on cassette. To start, copies will be available to purchase in-person only at our upcoming events. Next up is @____jc_leisure on Thu 7th May. Tickets are available via the link in our bio. Grab yours before they sell out.
Special thanks to @inis.eto who produced the original event, @tesco.f for the design + Time is Away and Rinko Kawauchi. We're honoured to work with you all.
Since releasing his new tape - an experimental collaboration with a North Wales seal colony - @____jc_leisure has received lots of nice write ups. In preparation for our upcoming show, we've added links to these articles in our bio. Go check them out and buy yourself a ticket via Headfirst before they all go. @edicoescn
Our First Thursdays music series is back! Join us on Thu 7th May for an evening with Liverpool-based composer JC Leisure (@____jc_leisure ). Together we will be exploring the history of human-animal musical collaborations. Expect underwater recordings, archival Folkways releases, experimental psych, incidental birdsong, and everything in between.
JC Leisure will also introduce his new record, ‘Low Tide, Hi Grypus’, recently released on @edicoescn . The record was created in collaboration with a colony of Atlantic grey seals.
Tickets are £6-8 (pay what you can), available via headfirst (link in bio). Please buy early so that we know whether to add a second show later in the evening x
ALIEDA VERHOEVEN SCHOLARSHIP 2026 🌀💫🌸
This year we launched our Community Archive Caretakers Scholarship ✷
We’re happy to welcome Awuor Onyango (@art.awuor ), caretaker of African Art Agenda (@artstudionotes ) , a Nairobi-based, female-led initiative working with archives as living spaces of care, memory, and collective knowledge ✧
Special thanks to our jury, Alejandro Acin @alejandroacin_ (IC Visual Lab - @ic_visual_lab ) ♡ and to everyone who applied, we’re so grateful for your practices and energy.
See you next year ✨
Are you looking for a work space in Bristol? We have a whole room + individual desk spaces, both available now. DM us if you would like to visit and please share with your wider networks.
