Arnolfini presents a landmark exhibition celebrating four decades of Joy Gregory’s pioneering practice. Catching Flies with Honey is the first major survey exhibition of Joy Gregory’s work, bringing together more than 150 photographs, films, installations and textile works spanning four decades. Across Arnolfini’s galleries, the exhibition reveals an artist who has continually redefined the possibilities of photography, inviting audiences into new ways of thinking about identity, history, beauty and belonging.
Since the early 1980s, Gregory has been a pioneering force in contemporary photography, challenging expectations of both the medium and what Black or feminist art should look like through work that is visually seductive, materially inventive and conceptually rigorous. Using processes ranging from Victorian cyanotypes and kallitypes to digital media and performance, Gregory continually expands photography’s aesthetic and material possibilities.
The exhibition will bring together key series spanning Gregory’s career, including Autoportrait (1990), a pivotal body of self-portraits exploring questions of beauty, exoticism and exclusion; The Handbag Project (1998–present), an ongoing study of luxury symbols of femininity through handbags owned by women during the apartheid era in South Africa; and Memory and Skin (1998), a multimedia installation combining photography, film, sound and gathered objects to examine the Caribbean as a layered landscape shaped by colonial legacies, cultural contradictions and hidden histories. These works will be presented alongside further pieces originating from Gregory’s extensive journeys across Sri Lanka, the Caribbean and Europe, as well as a newly commissioned film shot in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, created as part of a 20-year collaboration with the Indigenous community whose ancestors spoke the critically endangered N|uu language.
Biography
Joy Gregory (b.1959, UK) is a graduate of Manchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. She has developed a practice which is concerned with social and political issues with particular reference to history and cultural differences in contemporary society. As a photographer she makes full use of the media from video, digital and analogue photography to Victorian print processes. In 2002, Gregory received the NESTA Fellowship, which enabled her the time and the freedom to research for a major piece around language endangerment. The first of this series was the video piece Gomera, which premiered at the Sydney Biennale in May 2010. She is the recipient of numerous awards and has exhibited all over the world showing in many festivals and biennales. Her work included in many collections including the UK Arts Council Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, and Yale British Art Collection. She currently lives and works in London.
“It is a real privilege to share this new iteration of the exhibition with new audiences, creating opportunities for conversations around the work and photographic practice to continue to grow. This feels especially meaningful in the context of the Bristol Photography Festival, which opens at the same time.” — Joy Gregory
The exhibition was originated by Whitechapel Gallery, London, where it was first shown (8 October 2025 – 1 March 2026) with the subsequent tour organised in collaboration with Arnolfini, Bristol.
Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey has been generously supported by:
Freelands Foundation through the Freelands Award 2023
Research for this exhibition has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
With additional support for the artist from The Elephant Trust
In collaboration with:
