The July Art Diary begins with exhibitions in and reflection on ecclesiastical buildings, through the Liverpool Biennial and the Waterloo Festival. Moments from the wide-ranging engagement between religion and art are featured in exhibitions at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Waddesdon Manor, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. Reflection on the place of myth in the human story can be found in exhibitions at the Parsonage Gallery and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. At the same time, ‘Worldbuilding and Wonder’ explores the experience of people with autism about the concept at Firstsite Gallery.
Liverpool Cathedral is one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, a building which frequently unites its rich spiritual heritage with contemporary artistic expression. For the Liverpool Biennial, Ana Navas presents a series of ‘glass collages’ in the Lady Chapel, while Maria Loizidou has created a large-scale, crocheted installation.
Navas’ glass collages draw inspiration from the colours and forms found in the clothing and objects within portraits of women from throughout art history. Among them, a newly commissioned work draws inspiration from the embroideries created by generations of women from Liverpool, which are held in the Cathedral’s archives. Loizidou’s large-scale, crocheted installation responds to the architecture of the building and is a hanging tapestry of hand-embroidered migratory birds that can be found on Merseyside. Co-commissioned by the Cathedral, Loizidou’s thoughtful installation invites us to consider our relationship with nature and explores themes of migration, coexistence and survival in a constantly changing world.
Elsewhere in the Biennial, a major new single-channel film by Turner-Prize-winning artist Elizabeth Price centres on the architectural history of Catholic modernist churches in post-war Britain, a foundational architecture designed to house incoming communities, reflecting Liverpool’s own migratory patterns. The work features historic photographs from the Royal Institute of British Architects’ archive, as well as a series of newly commissioned architectural photographs (taken by Andrew Lee), with a particular emphasis on churches in the North West.
In ‘HERE WE ARE’, Price explores how these distinctive, modern buildings can tell a story of 20th-century migration and post-war uncertainty. Over one thousand Catholic churches were built in Britain between 1955 and 1975 – including many remarkable ones in the Liverpool City Region. They were built by and for the expanding Catholic diaspora in Britain, which came primarily from Ireland but also from Southern and Eastern Europe. The story opens with the 1937 futurist church of Our Lady Star of the Sea and St Winefride in Amlwch, Anglesey, designed by the Italian-born engineer Giuseppe Rinvolucri. It concludes with some of the remarkable churches created by Liverpool’s F.X. Velarde in the post-war period. The video also features over 20 other churches from areas across North West England, including Birkenhead, Blackpool, Bolton, Huyton, Preston and Wigan.
During the course of the video – which is narrated by a collage of multiple voices derived from varied archival and contemporary sources – the narrators consider how these buildings manifest the experience of the Catholic diaspora at this time, many of whom worked on the reconstruction of British cities, bombed during the war of 1939-45. These buildings reveal a church engaged in the social lives of its congregations and possibly less aloof from the realities of work, migration and war. Price suggests that in these buildings, we see a diasporic minority announce – sometimes cautiously, often boldly – both their sense of difference and belonging within British towns and cities. This is a story that speaks to both Liverpool’s foundation as a city formed by migration and the welcome that is owed to incoming communities today, which now includes Catholic congregations from Poland, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Ghana.
St John’s Waterloo is a church which organises an annual celebration of arts and community – the Waterloo Festival, a mix of exhibitions, concerts and events. The festival theme, ‘HERE’, reflects on present urban landscapes and their promise – everything that makes the neighbourhood and community what they are today, all that brings us together here. Through its programme, the festival explores what defines a 21st-century inner-city community. It invites a broader understanding of belonging, place, and placemaking, encompassing residents, wanderers, and commuters, as well as physical and digital spaces, from inherited histories to future visions of community. Drawing inspiration from two centuries of life in Waterloo, the festival reflects on the dynamic togetherness, shared spaces, and diversity to consider the challenges shaping contemporary life – and explore new ways to gather, connect, and imagine together.
This year’s exhibitions include ‘Waterloo’s Artists’, which, in the spirit of this year’s theme, is a vibrant, free exhibition celebrating local creativity – bringing together artists who live and work in Waterloo. Artists include Paul Baichoo, Eleanor Bentall, Catherine Dormor, Chris Clarke, FluxSoup, Steve Hollingshead, Roger Manning, Paul Riley, Joao Simoes Brown, Peter Sylveire, and Sue Lynch. The Churchyard Garden hosts an outdoor sculpture show by The London Group, inviting its artists to create a visual and spatial narrative of connection – where history meets modern life and where individual paths converge to create collective meaning. Also exhibiting are the Drummond Street Artists, who are showcasing a vibrant selection of new works that celebrate the eclectic talents of this dynamic group. United by lived experiences of homelessness and a shared passion for painting, they meet weekly to create and connect – embodying the true spirit of this year’s theme.
The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft has a new exhibition that re-examines its extraordinary collection of over 20,000 art and craft objects from fresh perspectives, including that of the community. ‘It Takes a Village’ marks 40 years since the museum’s inception and is a living curatorial experiment which will shape the museum’s major redisplay planned for 2028. The museum is collaborating with over 50 contributors to bring together more than 100 rare, some never-seen-before discoveries from the collection, alongside familiar works presented in new ways. Featuring pieces by renowned artists and craftspeople, including Ethel Mairet, Eric Gill, Joseph Cribb, David Jones, and Amy Sawyer, ‘It Takes a Village’ offers new ways of looking at these objects and the connections between them.
‘It Takes a Village’ considers how artists’ legacies are shaped over time, questioning traditional narratives and offering new interpretations of their work. Objects shown include a limestone relief carving by Joseph Cribb, vibrant screen-printed textiles by the little-known artist Grace Denman, and a handwoven silk wedding dress made and worn by Petra Gill, the daughter of Eric Gill. Visitors can also experience a sensory reimagining of Ethel Mairet’s home and workshop, Gospels. Created using inclusive design techniques, the display offers a multi-sensory way to engage with Mairet’s world.
Steph Fuller, Museum Director and CEO said, “We’re thrilled to present this exhibition, inviting both longtime supporters and new visitors to experience our collection in fresh, interactive ways this summer. It’s an opportunity to engage with the stories our collection holds, sparking dialogue not just among museumgoers but also across the sector. Together, we’ll explore the questions these objects raise and consider new ways of understanding them.”
The exhibition also features a display co-curated by members of the Methodist Survivors’ Advisory Group (a group of people who have lived experience of abuse) and the Methodist Modern Art Collection Management Committee addressing the complex legacy of Eric Gill. It marks a significant first: a museum display about an artist’s abusive legacy shaped in direct collaboration with abuse survivors.
Recognising Gill’s abuse of his daughters, the display focuses on the experiences of Petra and Elizabeth, offering space for a thoughtful and sensitive retelling of their stories, family lives and creative careers. Works include ‘The Plait’, a pencil drawing of Petra by Eric Gill (1922), and a sketch of Elizabeth by Gill (c1924). Examples of handweaving by Petra Gill, who trained under Ethel Mairet, will be shown, including the silk wedding dress from her 1930 wedding to Denis Tegetmeier, which has never been displayed before. Drawings and booklets created by Petra, Elizabeth and their sister Joan as children will also be shown for the first time.
The display features Eric Gill’s ‘Annunciation’, on loan from the Methodist Modern Art Collection. This watercolour became a central focus for the collaboration with the abuse survivors, who were working with the Methodist Modern Art Collection to determine whether the artwork should remain in their collection. The group felt strongly that the artwork should not be hidden or brushed aside. Their reinterpretation of the piece and its contextualisation alongside these works has shaped the direction of this display.
Looking further back in time, the beautiful, beguiling and sometimes bizarre Art of medieval illuminated manuscript illuminations is explored in a fascinating new online exhibition created by the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Featuring images of objects from the V&A’s extensive collection of manuscript cuttings, as well as the Barber’s own collection, ‘Fragments of Devotion’ focuses on the multi-sensory aspects of medieval and early modern manuscript illuminations and the Victorian practice of ‘breaking’ bound volumes for a burgeoning collectors’ market.
Originating in antiquity, illustrated manuscripts – in the Western tradition – largely date from the 11th to 16th centuries and took various forms, including Books of Hours, bibles, missals and choir books. They were illustrated using gold, silver and rich colours that gave each page a shimmering quality. The ‘breaking’ of these remarkable objects began in the late 18th century and became more widespread in the 19th century in response to growing demand from collectors, both private and institutional, seeking to assemble surveys of manuscript painting and ornament from various countries and periods. The size of the cuttings, or fragments, varied between whole pages to snippets of decorated borders and even isolated initials. The exhibition explores how such cuttings characterise and demonstrate various aspects of medieval Christian worship while also addressing the subsequent use and interest in these objects in the Victorian era.
Taking inspiration from Waddesdon Manor as a Jewish country house, Pablo Bronstein is unveiling a grand assembly of paintings on paper depicting new versions of the Temple of Solomon. ‘The Temple of Solomon and its Contents’ features a new body of work by Bronstein, including cross-sections and aerial plans, façade and frieze details, visualisations of the Solomonic columns, the principal contents, and much more.
The Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem is one of the most famous buildings in history, standing for over 400 years; it is significant as a place and an idea that has been sought, contested and imitated. Described in detail in the Bible, no one knows what it looked like, and for centuries, it has been reimagined by artists and designers, archaeologists, theorists and ideologues. Mimicking artistic attempts to reconstruct it over the centuries, from the Medieval to the Baroque, Bronstein explores the idealising tendencies of architecture that dominated from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
The works offer the viewer alternative ways of reconstructing the lost Temple, from ‘architecture terrible’ to Art Deco, exploring notions of the primitive, the modern and the Holy. As well as visualising the Temple of Solomon from the outside in different architectural iterations, the exhibition also ventures inside. It depicts some of its contents, not least the Ark of the Covenant, whose appearance and ornament are described in the Book of Exodus down to its exact dimensions. Also included are the menorahs with their seven lamps never to be extinguished, the golden table for showbreads, and the columns called Jachin and Boaz, as well as sanctuaries and chambers seen through elevated cross-sections.
Bronstein says: “My reconstruction of the Temple will explore idealising tendencies within architecture, across porous boundaries of styles prevalent during a defining era of archaeology – roughly the 18th to early 20th centuries – precisely the time when nationalisms sought to tie themselves to particular architectural traditions and in which nascent professional archaeology informed our understanding of the past. These versions of the Temple of Solomon are, in effect, monumental and often grim projections of European fantasies. I’ve tried to inhabit the ambitious contestants for the Prix de Rome as they set about reconstructing the Temple entirely in their own image.”
Raqib Shaw has spent two decades at work on his monumental painting ‘Paradise Lost’. The autobiographical work traces Shaw’s life from his childhood in the ethereally beautiful but politically troubled region of Kashmir through, as the artist said, “exile and rebellion, artistic awakening, emotional turmoil, and transformation that still continues.” The work’s title references both John Milton’s 17th-century poem of the same name and Kashmir’s reputation as a paradise on earth. As such, the work is not a direct retelling of Milton’s 17th-century poem but rather a reflection on the many paradises lost across a lifetime: childhood innocence, creative freedom, mental tranquillity, and cultural belonging. “This is not just my story,” Shaw explained. “It is the story of each of us and the story of our times.”
‘Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost’ debuts Shaw’s most ambitious project to date at the Art Institute of Chicago. At over 100 feet wide, Shaw’s monumental ‘Paradise Lost’ spans 21 panels. While the artist has previously exhibited the first chapter of ‘Paradise Lost’, this presentation marks the first time that all four chapters of the work have been displayed together in their fullest form yet. This magnificent allegorical painting takes viewers on a spellbinding journey, from the nocturnal solitude of the artist’s childhood in Kashmir to the frenzied daylight of the art world and the West, and finally to a fragile, renewed dawn. Each panel is dense with symbolism: mythical beasts, anthropomorphic hybrids, collapsing kingdoms, and natural beauty in various states of transformation. Throughout, the work is dotted with images of the artist, sometimes as a humanoid creature with different animal heads, at another time as a monkey looking with awe at the gleaming edifices and the wealth of the West, and sometimes unambiguously in full human form seated on a bed of saffron under a blossoming cherry tree, lost deep in his thoughts.
Paul Thek is another who drew regularly and deeply on religious influences and the stories of the Bible. ‘Paul Thek: Seized by Joy. Paintings 1965–1988’ at the Thomas Dane Gallery is the first exhibition of Thek’s work in the UK for over a decade and the first in the UK to focus on the artist’s painting practice.
Thek sketched and painted throughout his life, portraying friends and loved ones, documenting his surroundings and giving form to conscious and unconscious thoughts and desires. Painting and drawing seized the artist with joy and beyond and provided a form of idiomatic religious fervour. Unlike his sculptural works, which often confront the viewer with their visceral physicality, Thek’s paintings offer a quieter, more delicate meditation on life and experience. Using watercolour, gouache and ink, Thek created dreamlike compositions, often featuring poetic sentences or brief texts infused with spiritual and existential undertones. Transient by nature, the sheets of newsprint on which Thek frequently painted become themselves a profound metaphor, reflecting the fleeting moments of thought and emotion that the artist sought to capture. From Thek’s early technical drawings to his sublime landscapes of Ponza and the Mediterranean coastline, and finally, his iconic New York cityscapes and abstract compositions combining text and symbols, the exhibition offers a window onto the more intimate and personal realms of Thek’s visual universe.
The late Terry Fyffe was also an artist who dedicated himself to the pursuit of creative expression and spiritual exploration. A new website dedicated to his life, art and legacy has recently been launched. Designed as a resource for artists, curators, collectors, students, and art enthusiasts, this site offers a comprehensive insight into his prolific career and extraordinary body of work.
Fyffe built a remarkable career over four decades, predominantly based in London. He described his style as “figurative, expressionist painting, about the struggle for self-realisation.” Daniel Farson wrote that: “Ffyffe is a true painter in the classical tradition. A fluent draughtsman, he understands the challenge of paint and twists it to his advantage.”
Fyffe described in his essay ‘Beyond Post Modernism’ how he had a transformative experience whilst painting. For much of his career, he had been a well-regarded figurative painter in the classic tradition, drawing inspiration from the Old Masters such as Van Eyck, Bosch, Goya and Rembrandt, and increasingly tending towards religious imagery yet: “Whilst painting the Resurrection event, using free, broad, colourful strokes to represent the transcendental light emanating from the Risen Lord. I had an ‘Epiphany’ that took me back to the beginning, and I realised once more that the Modern Movement was beget by the influence of the Holy Spirit, the Zeitgeist, and that the purpose of Art is to glorify God, to be transcendent, to inspire people, to bring joy and peace, and to connect the viewer with their deeper mind (self) and lead to contemplation of the great questions like “What is Reality?” Where do we come from? Where are we going? And that art should reveal Beauty and (with the Modern ideal) a beauty that has not been seen before. In a moment, I saw it all.”
As a result, he returned to the style of work he had used at the beginning of his career but was empowered with all the study he had done and the considerable life experience he had gained. No longer emulating other artists or working in a derivative style, this new work was particularly original and authentic. The inspiration for it came from personal experience in meditation and the images we see coming via the Hubble Telescope, The Liga project and the electron microscope, the patterns of nature. I was fortunate to exhibit at St Stephen Walbrook, an exhibition that brought together the last works that Fyffe was working on before this profound change combined with his new work depicting the beauty of the hidden world of nature and the inner world of the mind. It was his last major exhibition and one that was particularly satisfying for him.
Another major Australian artist is having a significant exhibition of new works. Acclaimed Yolŋu artist Naminapu Maymuru-White has ‘Guwak – the ancestors’ opening at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney. One of the most highly regarded artists working in Australia today, 2024 marked two major institutional milestones. Maymuru-White was a participant in the group exhibition, ‘Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere’ at the Venice Biennale, and later that same year, her major installation for Frieze London 2024, ‘Milŋiyawuy’, was acquired by Tate Modern. The work comprises 17 bark paintings arranged in a constellation-like formation; each piece is intricately decorated with sacred miny’tji.
‘Guwak – the ancestors’ features new bark paintings, larrakitj, and works on board that extend Maymuru-White’s lifelong engagement with Yolŋu cosmology and exploration of the convergence of two realms: the earthly and the celestial. Central to Maymuru-White’s practice is Milŋiyawuy—the Milky Way stretching above in the sky and seemingly echoing below in the waters of Blue Mud Bay on the eastern coast of Arnhem Land. A sacred site and spiritual river for her Maŋgalili clan, Milŋiyawuy is revered as a great reservoir of the spirits of the Maŋgalili, and a passage to the afterlife. In Yolŋu cosmology, guwak is the night bird, a spiritual messenger that moves between the realms of the living and the dead. It is believed to carry the voices of the ancestors, its call often heard in moments of transition, ceremony, or mourning.
Each of Maymuru-White’s paintings is a synthesis of memory, imagination, and ancestral presence grounded in the Maŋgalili tradition. Her signature star-fields—dense, luminous, and richly layered—invite viewers into a universe that pulsates with life and energy. She was one of the first Yolŋu women to be taught to paint miny’tji (sacred creation clan designs). At the age of 73, her works are of historic and continuing significance as a Maŋgalili elder and as a contemporary artist in her own right. In 2025, her work will also feature in the landmark Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition, ‘Yolŋu Power: the art of Yirrkala’ and in the National Gallery of Australia’s 5th National Indigenous Triennial, ‘After the Rain’. Her work will also return to Frieze London with Sullivan+Strumpf later this year.
Stephanie Rayner is an artist and international lecturer whose work deals with what she sees as the great theme of our age: The transformation of our spirituality by the revelations of science and technology – a theme that addresses the deep need of our time and elicits powerful responses from viewers. She says: “In our era, humankind is being forced, by scientific revelations, into the birth of a profound new consciousness. All births are painful and contain elements of danger and risk, but births are the necessary threshold for evolving potential.”
‘Alter / Altar’ at Parsonage Gallery conjures a strange and sacred environment with sui generis works drawn from various periods in Rayner’s visionary career. Known for probing explorations of both spiritual and scientific terrain, Rayner encourages viewers to reflect on the frontiers of human knowledge and the disparate paths we might take to reach these limits. In this exhibition alone, she employs such unique, uncanny materials as children’s teeth, a meteorite, and a wasp’s nest, inviting viewers into communion with uncertain forces.
She says: “In these artworks, I look for the under-story of this continuous journey of longings… using myth, fairytales, religion and science in search of an enhanced understanding of these powerful labyrinthine connections that touch us beneath the thinking level. Although we seem to be missing our era’s Virgil or Homer, I hope these artworks give a sense of the truly mythic dimensions of the age in which we live.”
Paula Rego was another whose work engaged with fairy tales, myth and religion. ‘The Anthony Rudolf Collection: works given to him by Paula Rego’ is on display at Ben Uri and is a most revealing and interesting exhibition, telling the story of Rego and Anthony Rudolf’s 26-year relationship. A distinguished writer, poet, and translator who ran the Menard Press, Rudolf was Rego’s close companion and principal male model from 1996 until the end of her life in 2022. The show is beautifully illustrated through the art given by Rego to Rudolf over this quarter of a century. It includes over 40 works, the vast majority of which have never been seen in public before, and tells a different variant of well-known stories in art history about the artist, the muse, the model, and the relationships that accrue.
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, in collaboration with TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, is presenting ‘Terraphilia. Beyond the Human in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections’ is an ambitious and thought-provoking exhibition curated by Daniela Zyman. ‘Terraphilia’ invites audiences to reconsider humanity’s relationship with the earth through artistic, philosophical, and ecological lenses.
Spanning five centuries of artistic creation, the exhibition reimagines the traditional museum canon by shifting the focus from the human to the more-than-human world. In response to today’s ecological emergency, ‘Terraphilia’ confronts the ontological rupture between humans and the planet, proposing symbolic and imaginative paths toward restoration and reconnection. Featuring nearly one hundred works drawn from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, the Carmen Thyssen Collection, and Francesca Thyssen’s TBA21 contemporary art collection, the exhibition marks the first time that four generations of a single family’s collecting vision have been brought together in a unified curatorial narrative.
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, founder and chairwoman of TBA21, says: “This exhibition is an invitation to engage with art not merely as pleasure or heritage but as a pedagogical and active force in shaping our collective future. It helps us interrogate how we exist within nature, how we see ourselves reflected in it, and how we might repair what has been broken. Art remains essential, not as a passive form of escapism, but as a catalyst for transformation.” As such, the exhibition is an invitation to imagine a new form of cosmopolitics, where humans, animals, plants, elements, and spiritual forces co-exist in a shared planetary community grounded in equity, empathy, and care.
The title of the exhibition combines the words Terra (earth) and Philia (love, affinity), giving rise to a concept that proposes an affective, ethical, and spiritual commitment to the planet. This love is neither romantic nor possessive but political and transformative: a way of re-imagining existence on earth through care, reciprocity, and shared responsibility. It is inspired by contemporary thinkers such as the French-Martinican Malcom Ferdinand, who describes the earth as a “World Ship”, a term that evokes the idea of a vessel that holds all of humanity yet has become a place of injustice and inequality, especially towards racialised peoples.
One section within the exhibition, ‘The Return of the Time of the Myth’, highlights the symbolic and spiritual dimension of stories as tools to reimagine and heal the world. Works such as ‘Expulsion’. ‘Moon and Firelight’ by Thomas Cole or the 18th-century Chakrasamvara Mandala, alongside the “Sacudimentos” by the artist and Candomblé priest Ayrson Heráclito, summon up myths not as relics of the past but as living narratives. Myths carry ancestral knowledge and offer ways of understanding creation, loss, transformation, and survival.
Another artist with an ecological and philosophical approach, Andrea Francolino, views rupture as a space for infinite possibilities. Mazzoleni is presenting ‘Contemplatio’, Francolino’s first London solo exhibition in almost a decade. The exhibition offers a sanctuary for reflection, inviting visitors to contemplate the beauty found in both human and earthly imperfections.
Francolino centres his artistic reflections on the concept of rupture in all its variations, consequences and possibilities. He explores rupture as a marker of space and time, a symbol of natural evolution, and a representation of environmental and societal equilibrium. In ‘Contemplatio’, the artist invites viewers to rediscover two fundamental conditions for engaging deeply with art and its manifestation: contemplation and inspiration. Contemplation – through stillness and reflection – allows us to see beyond surface appearances, while inspiration transforms perception into generation. In an era driven by speed and performance, these concepts are elusive, ‘Contemplatio’ thus urges us to pause, reflect and embrace the profound messages that emerge from these fractures, both in the world around us and within ourselves.
Central to the exhibition, a striking 24k gold crack, made in Turin in 2021 – 2022, embodies the show’s core theme: imperfection as a source of reflection, transformation and meaning. Through highlighting the crack with gold, the artist does not suggest that the crack should be closed or repaired. On the contrary, it must remain open and never be concealed. As such, this evocative work serves as a threshold to infinite possibilities.
The contemplative process also emerges in the series’ Caso x caos x infinite variabili’, in which Francolino explores the balance between chance and order. Each work begins with the accidental breaking of a glass, which forms the foundational layer of the piece. The artist then meticulously hand-cuts three additional layers, replicating every fracture of the first glass with exact precision. When superimposed, these layers construct a structure where harmony emerges from chaos—an echo of nature’s own ability to find equilibrium within disruption.
Further exploring themes of human and ecological connectivity, a floor-based work invites visitors to physically engage with the piece by stepping onto it, leaving their own imprint. Over time, these traces accumulate, turning the artwork into an evolving narrative – an ever-changing record of shared experiences and personal reflections.
‘VOYAGER 2000: Worldbeing & Wonder?’ at Firstsite is a powerful and emotional exhibition exploring how technology has shaped identity, creativity, and connection for autistic and disabled communities. Featuring video, animation, sculpture, painting, photography, and fan art, the exhibition blends deeply personal stories with the global evolution of digital life.
Spanning everything from early avatars and web forums to contemporary platforms like Discord and OnlyFans, the exhibition highlights how technology has been used not just to communicate but to imagine, connect, learn, and belong. Essex’s pioneering role in these developments—including Chelmsford’s early radio experiment and the first multiplayer online game (MUD) in Colchester —is woven throughout the show, which features artists such as Rachel Maclean, Brian Eno, Eduardo Paolozzi and Peter Sedgley, among many others.
The exhibition follows an autobiographical story of an autistic person ‘growing up online’ at the turn of the millennium—navigating the internet, exploring education and relationships, seeking employment, and developing a voice in a society that often presents communication barriers. These stories have been shaped over years of conversations with autistic and disabled people across SEN schools, support groups, video games, and online communities. From students developing design skills through Roblox to adults using dating apps as ‘social stories’ to explore shared interests, the exhibition captures how technology enables self-expression, connection, and intimacy. Comics, manga, and digital avatars offer inspiration and role models, while people with physical impairments have used apps and online platforms to access intimacy and challenge social barriers.
Curator George Morl says: “The ‘online world’, which is often text and visual-based, raises thoughts around how visual communication can be used offline to support inclusion for disabled people. For me, art started in a hospital, developing skills online, networking in online spaces initially without barriers, and finding a creative outlet through the arts. Art and technology can support access to education, develop skills, to ultimately get employment.”
Liverpool Biennial, 7 June – 14 September 2025 – Visit Here
Waterloo Festival: ‘Waterloo’s Artists’, 10 July – 13 July 2025
Visit Here ‘
Sculpture Exhibition: The London Group’, 10 July – 6 September 2025
Visit Here
‘Exhibition: Drummond Street Artists’, 10 July – 13 July 2025
Visit Here
‘It Takes a Village’, 5 July 2025 – 1 February 2026, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft
Visit Here
‘Fragments of Devotion: A Sensory History of Illuminated Manuscript Cuttings’ –
Visit Here
‘The Temple of Solomon and its Contents’, 16 July – 2 November 2025. Waddesdon Manor – Visit Here
‘Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost’, 7 June 2025 – 19 January 2026, Art Institute of Chicago –
Visit Here
‘Paul Thek: Seized by Joy. Paintings 1965–1988’, 29 May – 2 August 2025, Thomas Dane Gallery – Visit Here
‘Naminapu Maymuru-White: Guwak – the ancestors’, 31 July – 23 August 2025, Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney –
Visit Here https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/artists/naminapu-maymuru-white
‘Alter / Altar: Stephanie Rayner’, 28 June – 31 August 2025, The Parsonage Gallery, Maine – Visit Here
‘The Anthony Rudolf Collection: works given to him by Paula Rego’, 11 June – 5 September 2025, Ben Uri – Visit Here
‘Terraphilia: Beyond the Human in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections’, 1 July – 24 September 2025, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid –
Visit Here
‘Andrea Francolino. Contemplatio’, 5 June – 12 September 2025, Mazzoleni –
Visit Here ‘
VOYAGER 2000: Worldbeing & Wonder? Conversations on Communication, Autism + Disability, Technology, Intimacy’, 19 July – 5 October 2025, Firstsite –
Visit Here