Black History Month in the UK runs throughout October. This year’s theme, Honouring Our Communities, focuses on individuals whose everyday contributions are making a big impact. To mark the event, we’ve curated 10 exhibitions across the UK – from Plymouth to Perth – that explore Black identity, history and culture. This list encompasses an array of media, including film, installation, music, photography and sculpture. From landmark figures and overlooked histories to contemporary perspectives on Black life, these shows offer a diverse picture of artists, stories and communities shaping the cultural landscape.
The Music is Black: A British Story
V&A East Museum, London | Until 10 January
V&A East Museum’s immersive sound experience celebrates the power and impact of 125 years of Black British music. The exhibition unveils the origins and global impact of multiple genres, playing more than 120 tracks across 2 tone, Brit funk, lovers rock, jungle, drum & bass, trip hop, UK garage, grime and more. Plus, visitors will discover the hidden stories of early legends and contemporary artists through objects: Winifred Atwell’s piano; the Nintendo Jme used for early experiments; fashion worn by Little Simz, Seal, Dame Shirley Bassey and Skin; and photographs of Kemistry and Storm, Mis-Teeq and Skepta.
Lessons of the Hour
Perth Museum | 9 October – 11 April
Turner Prize-nominated British artist Sir Isaac Julien CBE RA brings his acclaimed film-based installation Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass (2019) to Perth Museum this October. Julien’s work is a meditation on the life and legacy of American abolitionist, writer, philosopher and human rights campaigner Frederick Douglass, who travelled widely across Scotland in the 19th century. In 1846, Douglass delivered four speeches to sold-out audiences in Perth’s former City Hall, where the museum now stands. Lessons of the Hour offers a powerful reflection on his struggle for freedom and equality.
Sanlé Sory: Colour Years
The Photographers’ Gallery, London | 14 October – 21 February
Sanlé Sory is one of West Africa’s most prolific photographers. He took an estimated million photographs over six decades, showing the profound social and political changes in Burkina Faso. Sory is best known for his black-and-white studio photography of the 1960s and 1970s, but The Photographers’ Gallery is celebrating a lesser-known chapter of his career with this exhibition. His colour prints, meticulously restored from the negatives in his archive, will be on show, alongside Volta Jazz album covers featuring portraits of influential bands that flourished after Burkina Faso’s independence.
thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey
Arnolfini, Bristol | 17 October – 7 February
Since the early 1980s, Joy Gregory has challenged expectations of both photography and what Black or feminist art “should” look like. Working across historic image-making processes, digital media, performance and textiles, her work explores identity, beauty and belonging through works that are visually rich and materially inventive. The exhibition takes its title from a proverb repeated by her mother – “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” – and encapsulates Gregory’s approach to art as “political with a small p”: intimate, visually pleasurable and encouraging nuanced, rather than polemical, discussions.
Grenfell by Steve McQueen
The Box, Plymouth | 24 October – 24 January
In December 2017, artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen made an artwork in response to the fire that took place earlier that year on 14 June at Grenfell Tower. Seventy-two people died in the tragedy. Filming the building before it was enclosed in hoarding, McQueen sought to create a record. “I knew once the tower was covered up, it would start to leave people’s minds. I was determined that it never be forgotten.” Grenfell was first presented in 2023 in London. It is touring the nation, following private viewings prioritising bereaved families and survivors. The 24-minute piece underscores the ongoing fight for justice.
Beverly Buchanan: Weathering
Spike Island, Bristol | Until 31 January
Beverly Buchanan’s multidisciplinary practice was rooted in the landscapes and histories of the American Southeast. Throughout her career, she developed a singular vision shaped by memory, materiality and place, exploring the enduring legacies of slavery through the histories embedded in architecture, landscape and everyday materials. Weathering is the first European survey of Buchanan, bringing together four decades of painting, drawing, earthworks, artists’ books and rarely-seen archival material. Included are her celebrated “shack sculptures”, inspired by the homes of Black tenant farmers and sharecroppers.
Portrait of Black Britain
Factory International, Manchester | 2 October – 1 November
“What does it mean to be Black, living in the UK?” This is the question at the heart of Cephas Williams’ powerful photography exhibition. It profiles a range of people through portraiture, focusing on as many individuals from as wide a range of backgrounds as possible. The exhibition was originally commissioned for Manchester International Festival (MIF) 2021, with 116 portraits on show. The project has continued to grow and now brings together a total of 228 depictions, from Manchester and beyond. The aim: to make more Black people visible and to offer the next generation a holistic picture of the African diaspora.
Harold Offeh: The Mothership Collective 2:0
Tramway, Glasgow | 5 September – 7 February
Harold Offeh has transformed Tramway into a “sci-fi playscape”, inviting visitors of all ages to imagine potential futures by visiting interactive stations that draw on themes from science fiction and utopian thinking. The project revisits concepts explored in Offeh’s initial The Mothership Collective from 2006, which saw him invite fellow artists, dancers and musicians to create work with members of the public inspired by ideas of Afrofuturist mythology in the music and performances of George Clinton and Sun-Ra. Here, as in much of his work, Offeh employs humour to confront the viewer with historical narratives.
Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life
Orleans House Gallery, London | 2 October – 28 February
Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life brings the work of the Jamaican-born, West London–based sculptor back to the city where he lived, worked and carved for more than half a century. Moody’s story is one of constant reinvention: he initially trained in dentistry, but after seeing Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum, he decided to teach himself to carve. From wooden figures made in the 1930s to post‑war experiments with concrete and resin, this exhibition traces Moody’s journey in full, positioning him as “one of the most important yet historically overlooked artists of the twentieth century.”
British Art Show 10: A Chorus of Strangers
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry | 2 October – 10 January
British Art Show 10 is the UK’s largest recurring contemporary art exhibition. This year, it is curated by writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun, featuring more than 30 artists who “challenge fears of otherness and difference often sparked in periods of uncertainty or change.” The selection provides a vital overview of the most exciting art produced in the UK during the past five years. It includes several artists who engage with Black histories and experience, such as Alvaro Barrington, Liz Johnson Artur, Julianknxx, Precious Okoyomon and Ufoma Essi. It opens in Coventry and tours to Swansea, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Sanlé Sory, Volta Photo Studio, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. © Sanlé Sory, 2026. Courtesy of Tezeta.
2. Julianknxx, Still from Shifting _ Spirit _ Time, BURO Stedelijk, 2025, © Studioknxx
3. J.P. Ball Studio, 1867 Douglass (Lessons of The Hour), 2019. © Isaac Julien.
4. Sanlé Sory, Volta Photo Studio, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. © Sanlé Sory, 2026. Courtesy of Tezeta.
5. Sanlé Sory, Volta Photo Studio, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. © Sanlé Sory, 2026. Courtesy of Tezeta.
6. Joy Gregory, Kalahari (Magdalena Runs) 2005–2010 C-type print © Joy Gregory.
7. Steve McQueen, Grenfell, 2019 (still). Courtesy the artist.
8. Beverly Buchanan, ‘Out of Control’ (1991). Courtesy of Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution © The Estate of Beverly Buchanan.
9. SANCHEZ RHYS, Credit: Cephas Williams – Portrait of Black Britain.
10. ADEOLA ADELAKUN, Credit: Cephas Williams – Portrait of Black Britain.
11. Harold Offeh, The Mothership Collective 2:0. Photo: Tiu Makkonen.
12. Ronald Moody working on plaster model of ‘Savacou Maquette’, Fleming Close Studio Fulham 1963.
13. Julianknxx, Still from Shifting _ Spirit _ Time, BURO Stedelijk, 2025, © Studioknxx.
