Each month, we bring you a selection of UK exhibitions that complement each other or draw on similar themes. You can discover more about these exhibitions on Bloomberg Connects, a free app which allows access to museums, galleries and cultural spaces around the world. For unique content and behind-the-scenes commentary, download the app today.

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This month, we look at how museums and galleries are drawing attention to the work of Black British artists.

This article in the Museums Journal suggests that in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which provoked a wave of anti-racism protests in the UK, there was a concerted move towards improving diversity and addressing structural racism within the heritage sector.

This positive cultural shift as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement is echoed in the removal of statues associated with colonialism and slavery, and in the past few years, museums have more actively confronted decolonising practices. Recent exhibitions such as Ekow Eshun's 'The Time is Always Now' at the National Portrait Gallery, 'Entangled Pasts' at the Royal Academy of Arts, and 'Conversations' at the Walker Art Gallery highlighted the hidden Black figure in Western art history and the wider impact of our enslaved histories.

There's a danger in grouping disparate artists working across different themes and mediums under the heading 'Black British artists'. Yet the list of exhibitions below perhaps reveal the changes that are being made in terms of representation, the curatorial move away from White, Eurocentric perspectives and our willingness to engage more openly with diverse, uncomfortable histories.

'Lubaina Himid with Magda Stawarska: Another Chance Encounter', Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (until 2nd November 2025)

New works by Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska have been inspired by the Kettle's Yard house and collection – not least a multimedia installation, Slightly Bitter, which takes as its starting point correspondence between writer and poet Sophie Brzeska and artist Nina Hamnett.

Installation view of 'Lubaina Himid with Magda Stawarska: Another Chance Encounter'

The creative exchange between these two twentieth-century figures serves to mirror the decade-long collaboration between Himid and Stawarska – but more importantly, it centres these two women beyond their relationship with sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

You can hear Himid and Stawarska talk about the significance of the correspondence between Brzeska and Hamnett in an audio on Bloomberg Connects.

The exhibition also includes new paintings by Himid titled How May I Help You? which gives space to the men Jim and Helen Ede (the founders of Kettle's Yard) may have encountered during their stays in Tangiers. This continues Himid's interest in reclaiming forgotten narratives and figures.

2025, acrylic and charcoal on canvas by Lubaina Himid (b.1954)

Listen to Himid talk about this series of paintings in an audio to accompany the show on Bloomberg Connects.

'Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985–2025', ICA London (until 7th September 2025)

Himid is also the curator of this exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which revisits 'The Thin Black Line', a pivotal display of work by young Black and Asian women staged at the ICA 40 years ago in 1985. Works by all the original artists – including Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Claudette Johnson and Veronica Ryan – are on show here, alongside works made over the past four decades.

Crucially, the exhibition highlights Himid's own curatorial practice in the 1980s in which she pushed to the fore the work of young artists of colour in the context of the wider British Black Arts Movement.

'Dennis Morris: Music + Life', Photographer's Gallery, London (until 28th September 2025)

British-Jamaican photographer Dennis Morris is known for his portraits of figures such as Bob Marley and Marianne Faithful, and his capture of important twentieth-century cultural moments. The guide to the exhibition on Bloomberg Connects includes a video interview with Morris in which he talks about how the camera helped overcome his own shyness.

Black and white photograph by Dennis Morris (b.1960)

More significantly, perhaps, is the focus on Morris' early documentary work, in particular his series such as Growing Up, Black which reveals the everyday lives of Black British communities living in neighbourhoods that were often overlooked. Find out more about this series documenting West Indian life in Hackney on Bloomberg Connects.

'Holly Graham: The Warp/The Weft/The Wake', Manchester Art Gallery (until 15th March 2026)

Born out of her residency at Manchester Art Gallery, this new work by artist Holly Graham draws on years of research across Manchester and within the gallery itself in which she explored the histories of colonial expansion and the forced labour linked to the cotton industry.

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Graham's work, which will become part of the Manchester Art Gallery collection, is composed of a Victorian cotton costume based on the silhouette of a dress worn by the African-American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond – a wider reference to Remond's visit to the city in 1859. The work is complemented by oral history recordings and the gallery's own textile collections.

'Hew Locke: Gilt', Sculpture in the Park, Compton Verney, Warwickshire (until July 2027)

Hew Locke's 'Gilt', on show as part of Sculpture in the Park at Compton Verney, was originally conceived for the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 2022, but it sits well in this British context. Placed against Compton Verney's Robert Adam-designed entrance, the four urn-like sculptures call to mind trophies and have much to say about the relationship between gold and guilt – and associated legacies of colonialism and power.

Gilt was originally commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022

You can find out more about 'Sculpture in the Park', which also includes works by Permindar Kaur and Larry Achiampong, on the museum's Bloomberg Connects guide.

'Donald Locke: Resistant Forms', Spike Island, Bristol (until 7th September 2025)

This is the first major survey of work by artist Donald Locke (father of Hew), who moved to the UK from Guyana in the 1950s; after shuttling between the two countries he relocated to the US. Featuring more than 80 works in a variety of materials, this exhibition considers his output across these different geographic locations.

Yet the show nevertheless highlights his sustained commitment to issues around history and identity – in particular the legacy of colonialism (his famous work Trophies of Empire from Tate is on show) and US racial politics.

Imelda Barnard, Commissioning Editor – Exhibitions and Bloomberg Connects, Art UK

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This content was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies