Spike Island

03/09/2026

BIDDING OPEN: Win exclusive prizes in our silent auction 🎁

To celebrate our 50th anniversary, we are organising a silent auction of special offers generously donated in support of Spike Island.

UP FOR GRABS:
⭐ A rare private visit for up to 10 guests to Lypiatt Park in Gloucestershire, the extraordinary former home and sculpture park of renowned British sculptor Lynn Chadwick (1914–2003)
⭐ An exclusive, out-of-hours tour of the Royal Academy of Arts hosted by Artistic Director Helen Legg
⭐ A 3-night stay at Durslade Farmhouse, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, with a private exhibition tour led by Senior Director Dea Vanagan
⭐ A unique artwork hand-drawn by Aardman Animations co-founder Sir Peter Lord

Bidding will close at 11.59pm on Saturday 5 September

Place your bid online at the link in our bio 🔗

Special thanks to Lypiatt Park, Aardman Animations, the Royal Academy and Hauser & Wirth Somerset for their generous support

1. Image courtesy Lypiatt Park
2. Image courtesy Aardman Animations
3. Image courtesy Helen Legg
4. Image courtesy Hauser & Wirth Somerset

02/09/2026

Spike Kids ⚡

This summer, we invited some of the children in our community to make a zine based on what they find interesting in our current exhibition by artist Nancy Lupo.

The outcome was our first Spike Kids Zine, filled with questions, drawings, observations and collages.

⛰️ 'The tinfoil peaks reminded us of: tiny silver mountains, the sea, fortune tellers'
👼 'The wall relief looks like a portal to another world. It could be where the angels have lunch'

Pick up a free copy of the Spike Kids Zine in our galleries this week, before our current exhibition season ends this Sunday 6 September.

The zine was created by kids, for kids, facilitated and designed by Jasmine Smail.

Learn more about our events for kids and parents on our website 💻

Design by Jasmine Smail, photography by Emily Widdows. All images courtesy Spike Island

01/09/2026

Last chance to see Nancy Lupo: 'Several Chickens Later', open at Spike Island until Sunday 6 September

"Lupo’s wilting fantasies thrive on instability. Any sense of immersion is fractional, undermined as much by unmet desire as by the fragility of illusion. Yet puzzling over these suspended attractions is a consuming pleasure, like longing itself—full of endless distances, tenuously bridged and imperfectly mitigated by the objects of our fancy." — Alex Bennett, Art Forum

Learn more about Lupo's exhibition at the link in our bio 🔗

Nancy Lupo: 'Several Chickens Later' (2026). Installation view at Spike Island, Bristol. Images courtesy the artist, photography by Rob Harris

31/08/2026

This week's the week 🎂

Spike Island's 50th Anniversary Summer Party is happening this Saturday, and you're all invited 🫂

We'll be joined by Noods Radio who are programming DJs in the sculpture yard from 7–9pm. You'll hear sounds from residents MICA and Andy Payback, who'll be spinning everything from soul, funk and RnB to synth pop and electronica 💿

While they're playing, the sculpture yard transforms into an outdoor bar with organic wine producers Limeburn Wines, Bristol brewers Left Handed Giant, and soft-drink connoisseurs YEW.

Grab final tickets today and we'll see you this weekend!

Link in bio 🔗

Design courtesy iodo
Images courtesy the artists

27/08/2026

26/08/2026

SI50 SUMMER PARTY: Live art guest-produced by Perpetually Stew

Meet the live artists joining us to celebrate 50 years of Spike Island on Saturday 5 September 🎂

JOHNNY MORGAN-JONES
Johnny Morgan-Jones (aka Buoys Buoys Buoys) is a folklorist, multidisciplinary artist and arts facilitator from Swansea who retells folk histories and interrogates unreliable narrators through the lens of Q***r masculinity, land memory, contemporary ritual magic, and working class Welsh folk culture.

ELEANOR DUFFIN
Eleanor Duffin is a visual artist from Wexford, Ireland, currently based in Bristol. Her installations, performance lectures and published writings explore relationships between language, materiality and the body, engaging strategies of autofiction to foreground relational and decolonial approaches to making. Drawing from Marxist and feminist theory, alongside animistic beliefs rooted in her Irish heritage, she approaches materials as co-workers within the making process.

HATS ASTON
Sculptor and filmmaker Hats Aston creates original forms using recycled industrial paper to construct sculpture, costume and sets that explore and respond to the materials she works with.

SAMUEL FORDHAM
Samuel Fordham is an artist, educator and printmaker based in Bristol. Samuel has developed a community-led practice engaging with ideas focused on the presence of lived experience and the importance of photography’s material form.

Performing alongside

Book your place today via the link in our bio 🔗

Design by iodo
Images courtesy the artists

25/08/2026

September's reading group: 'Chiquitita' by Pedro Carmona-Alvarez 📚
Tuesday 8 September, 6–7.30pm

'I'm frightened of my dreams, of everything I don't know, but also of everything I know.'

Loosely inspired by Pedro Carmona-Alvarez’s own experiences of fleeing Chile, 'Chiquitita' is a tender novel about flight and exile, the passing of time and the experiences that remain with us, refusing erasure.

Join us to discuss the book and its themes with East Bristol Books, in an informal discussion led by Dan Eltringham and Andrés Anwandter. Please read the book in advance of this event.

Sign up today at the link in our bio 🔗

Image courtesy Akoya Publishing (2026)

21/08/2026

Beverly Buchanan: ‘Weathering’ opens at Spike Island on Friday 25 September 2026 🏡

Spike Island presents the first European survey exhibition of the work of Beverly Buchanan (b.1940, d.2015)

Rooted in the landscapes and histories of the American Southeast, Buchanan developed a singular practice shaped by memory, materiality and place, exploring the enduring legacies of slavery through the histories embedded in architecture, landscape and everyday materials.

This exhibition foregrounds the intimate forms through which Buchanan nurtured the communities of friendship and mutual support that were integral to both her life and artistic practice, alongside major works spanning the 1970s to the 2010s. Artists’ books, manifestos, small sculptures and her witty, affectionate Christmas cards reveal a practice that moved fluidly between the monumental and the personal.

Buchanan’s writing—by turns incisive, humorous and deeply reflective—runs throughout the exhibition, offering insight into her artistic thinking as well as her daily life, ambitions and struggles.

The exhibition at Spike Island is curated by Clémentine Proby and Nicole Yip. It was developed in collaboration with Haus am Waldsee (Berlin) and 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine (Metz), and will tour to Vleeshal (Middelburg) from 14 March to 27 June 2027. It is generously supported by Art Fund, the Henry Moore Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Beverly Buchanan Exhibition Circle.

Learn more via our website 🔗

1. Beverly Buchanan, Out of Control (1991). © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan and Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
2. Beverly Buchanan, Buchanan self-portrait in mirror on Konica (1976). © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan and Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
3. Beverly Buchanan, Miss Flossie’s Shack (1989). © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan. Collection of Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Photograph by Andrew Judd
4. Beverly Buchanan, Untitled (Christmas Tree) (ca.2000). © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan and Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
5. Beverly Buchanan, Untitled (Maquette) (ca.1970s). © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan. Collection of Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet. Photograph by Andrew Judd

20/08/2026

What is Tohé Commaret reading, watching and listening to?

Hear from current Spike Island exhibiting artist .pirater about the films, books and music that are inspiring her at the moment.

🎥 Lucrecia Martel, 'La Ciénaga' (2001)
🎥 Federico Fellini, 'Nights of Cabriria' (1957)

📖 Chris Marker, 'Commentaires 1' (1961)

💿 Floating Points and Pharaoh Sanders, 'Promises' (2021)

Tohé Commaret: 'Mijitas' continues at Spike Island until Sunday 6 September

Learn more at the link in our bio 🔗

19/08/2026

🎂 50 years of Spike Island: Summer Party Full Lineup Announcement ⚡

We're excited to announce the full lineup of artists who'll be performing at our Summer Party, happening on Saturday 5 September, 5pm til 3am in celebration of our 50th anniversary 🎂

Performing:
• .pirater • • • • • Resident DJs • Al Cameron • • .studio

+ Live Art guest-produced by .stew:
• samuelwjfordham • • hatsaston

Get your ticket today via Headfirst - link in bio 🔗

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