Ed Atkins is best known for his computer-generated videos and animations. Repurposing contemporary technologies in unexpected ways, his work traces the dwindling gap between the digital world and human feeling. He borrows techniques from literature, cinema, video games, music and theatre to examine the relationship between reality, realism and fiction.
This career-spanning exhibition features moving image works from the last 15 years alongside writing, paintings, embroideries and drawings. Together, they pit a weightless digital life against the physical world of heft, craft and touch. Atkins uses his own experiences, feelings and body as models to explore themes of intimacy, love and loss. For Atkins, the exhibition represents a reimagining of the messy, unravelling realities of life.
'My life and my work are inextricable. How do I convey the life-ness that made these works – my life-ness – through the exhibition? Not in some factual, chronological, biographical way, but through sensations. I want it so the more you see, the richer, more complex, less authored, less gettable things become.'
—Ed Atkins
Ed Atkins Pianowork 2 2023 © Ed Atkins. Courtesy: the Artist, Cabinet London, dépendance, Brussels, Gladstone Gallery, New York and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Ed Atkins Pianowork 2 2023 © Ed Atkins. Courtesy: the Artist, Cabinet London, dépendance, Brussels, Gladstone Gallery, New York and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Ed Atkins Pianowork 2 2023 © Ed Atkins. Courtesy: the Artist, Cabinet London, dépendance, Brussels, Gladstone Gallery, New York and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
The film in the final room of the exhibition, Nurses Come and Go, But None for Me 2024, is two hours long. Daily screening times are 10.30, 12.40 and 14.50.
Tate Britain's step-free entrance is on Atterbury Street. It has automatic sliding doors and there is a ramp down to the entrance with central handrails.
The Exhibition is on the Main floor of the gallery.
- Accessible, standard and Changing Places toilets are located on the Lower floor.
- Ear defenders can be borrowed from the ticket desk on the Lower floor.
To help plan your visit to Tate Britain, have a look at our visual story. It includes photographs and information about what you can expect from a visit to the gallery.
For more information before your visit:
- Email hello@tate.org.uk
- Call +44 (0)20 7887 8888 (daily 10.00–17.00)
Find out more about the Ed Atkins exhibition with our exhibition guide.
Need a bigger font size of the exhibition guide? Download the large print guide [277 KB].
