Bristol: city of art

Bristol: city of art 2027
Next year the British Art Show 10, curated by Ekow Eshun, visits Bristol. Two iconic arts spaces—Arnolfini and Spike Island—will host groundbreaking work for this five-yearly touring exhibition, and both share their sites with UWE Bristol’s Postgraduate School of Arts. Exploring this relationship, Dr Steven Paige (Programme Leader, MA Fine Art) and Nicole Yip (Director, Spike Island) unpack how Bristol has established itself as an international hub for contemporary arts, and what this means for students in the city. 

Steven: I've been coming to Bristol as an artist the best part of 25 years. It's a city that you can move around and there’s always been lots going on, especially at Spike, and then Arnolfini with its public facing programmes.

Nicole: It’s a city that creates its own conversations with other parts of the country and the world. What I find particularly appealing is its lively layered ecosystem—it has this wonderful art school, but also offers a context for those students to merge into. There's a lot of activity bubbling at the grassroots, artists-led level, but supported by other forms of cultural infrastructure—programmes that allow progression. 

Steven: Students go out into the city and cross all those paths; students based at Bricks will work with a community groups, or set up a pop-up show at Centrespace, or get involved with Kit Form. You can attempt to teach this interconnectivity, but the city—it demonstrates it. And that is exciting.

Nicole: That energy is supported in the city—it makes the city dynamic, and that spirit of possibility also nourishes bigger institutions. 

Steven: Yeah. Spike Island, as a creative hub, demonstrates daily the relationship between studio activity, the programme activity, and the stuff in-between; whether it’s a poetry reading or the distinguished talk series—you go along. There’s a continuity that demonstrates that studying in Bristol—It’s not a shot in the dark—do your Master’s and go. There’s a cultural offer for users to step into—a kind of osmotic gathering, isn't there, that we all draw on? 

You're in a space that makes you visible. The Postgraduate School of Arts is a facilitative space with very thin walls between what students do within programme and what they do in the city.

Nicole: I like how you describe it as an osmic relationship. Ever since I started at Spike, I've been searching for an equivalent model where you have the sites of education, of production and making, and museum-scale exhibitions under one roof, and there simply isn't one of this scale in the UK or internationally. It's special and engenders a porosity between study and practice, yes. People move between different parts of our creative ecosystem—a lot of our studio artists graduated from UWE and perhaps teach, and a lot of students receive mentorship from studio artists.

Steven: That movement has something in common with the “can do” culture of the wider city, whether it's pulling down a statue, putting on a pop-up dance event, or something in-between. A counterculture offer, a form of cultural generosity. You can put on an event here, and people will come. Spike Island Open Studios is a really good example—thousands of people turning up to a cultural event in the city.

Nicole: I agree. Another thing that strikes me is the way Bristol punches above its weight in music, film and other cultural forms, and the way people traverse different disciplines. You see it so much amongst students, that expansive sense of practise that's not bounded by discipline. 

Steven: I hear you. I was lucky enough to be at Circus City recently. Amazing. And then the students come in and say, “oh, I've just been immersed in a show at the Undershed.” There's so much going on—a genuinely international offer too. 

You can't ignore the fact that Bristol was part of the Atlantic slave trade, it's a port city with a challenging history—but that connection to the water is also about confluence. Bristol's international-ness is laid down deep and is part of the city’s vivaciousness. 

Nicole: It’s undeniable that culture in Bristol has been shaped by migration. From a programmatic perspective, it feels important to address the complexity of those histories as well as the ongoing geopolitical shifts and movements of people. We’re interested in embarking on journeys of learning from artists we work with, opening up to experiences that are not our own – I couldn't see Spike’s programme being any other way. 

From a student's perspective that multiculturalism makes it a place that is engaging. In Bristol, you will see yourself wherever you're from. You can find you. 

Steven: Yes. There's perfectly said—you can find community. It's all available and very visible in Bristol. Communities here are outspoken, they are front footed, they are really not afraid to say what they think. Yes. And there is a sense of agency, something else which, you know, we feel very much.

Nicole: We thrive on that. We're invested in that culture and invested in those relationships and can’t wait to share with the world the best of Bristol at British Art Show 10.

UWE Bristol Postgraduate School of Arts
The School stretches across our City Campus. Just over an hour from London by train, and with an international airport close by, Bristol is very well connected. As the largest city in the Southwest, Bristol is a creative hotspot—an UNESCO City of Film, home to production companies, arts organisations, and a large, progressive community of artists and designers. 

We warmly invite you to experience our postgraduate community in person. Our City Campus will be open to visitors interested in postgraduate study on Saturday 21 March 2026, with all Programme Leaders available for discussion. Book your place.

Postgraduate courses
Animation MA / Designer Maker MA / Design Comms. Fashion Photography MA/ Design Comms. Illustration MA / Design Comms. Graphic Design MA / Filmmaking MA / Fine Art MA / Fine Art Curating MA / Fine Art Printmaking MA / Fine Art Photography MA / Journalism MA / Wildlife Filmmaking MA.

Spike Island
Spike Island is an international contemporary art centre in Bristol, UK with a reputation for supporting experimentation. Our passion lies in working closely with artists to produce ambitious, large-scale commissions at pivotal moments of their careers. We are also a site of learning and knowledge production, and directly support artists through over 70 subsidised studios and a sector-leading artist development programme.

Upcoming shows include: Olukemi Lijadu Feedback, Saturday January 31 to Sunday May 10, 2026 / Phillip Lai RAIN / RUIN, Saturday January 31 to Sunday May 10, 2026.