Sofia Hallström

From British photography icon David Bailey to Antony Cairns, Jamie Hawkesworth and Joy Gregory – as well as emerging photography talents such as Keiran Perry, Vladimir Khorev and Wing Shya – this year’s Photo London will span the established and the emerging, the documentary and the experimental. Returning to Somerset House from May 15 to 18, ​​expect a particularly diverse edition of the photography fair, with a noticeable presence of photographers from the Global South as well as queer perspectives and work that interrogates identity, surveillance and post-internet aesthetics. With galleries and exhibitors travelling from New York, Istanbul, Amsterdam, and Hsinchu City, Photo London 2025 is set to showcase a global snapshot of today’s most compelling photographic practices.

British artist Lubiana Himid’s work is characterised by paintings of bright interior scenes, as well as depictions of contemporary everyday life and landscapes showing overlooked aspects of history. In June, the Turner Prize-winner will curate ‘Connecting Thin Black Lines’ at the ICA, an exhibition that marks 40 years since ‘The Thin Black Line’, the landmark 1985 exhibition at the ICA in London that foregrounded a collection of young Black and Asian women artists in Britain. This iteration will bring together new and historic works by the original 11 artists, including Sonia Boyce, Claudette Johnson and Veronica Ryan, exploring legacy, collaboration, and cultural visibility, alongside archival works and new commissions.

At first encounter, Croatian-born Nora Turato’s solo exhibition pool7 at the ICA in London appears sparse, offering little of the spectacle we might expect from a contemporary installation. Entering the lower gallery, the environment feels stark, cold and clinical. Around 1,800 A4 sheets of white paper cover the walls in uniform tiles. The room feels like an empty swimming pool. On the sheets, in plain black Arial font, Turato has printed sporadic notes to self, fragments of overheard chatter and intimate overshares: ‘I’m looking to art to save me / can it’ she writes. ‘if u aint dirty / u aint here to party’, ‘girls just wanna have fun / no fun allowed it seems’.  There is nothing mundane about this unfiltered, spiralling mass of language, brought together by a mind constantly processing and reacting to the world.  In the room, I feel like I’m endlessly doom scrolling in slow-motion. pool7 is the seventh iteration of Turato’s ongoing text-based work, a continuation of her pool series in which Turato creates yearly iterations of pools lined with collections of found language drawn from media, conversations, advertising, and online content. In the next room, the tone shifts dramatically. Lit only by a warm orange glow from a ceiling light, the space is fitted with plush carpets and cushions, with a nonsensical monologue playing out in jarring screams, unhinged sobs and guttural cries throughout the room. It's the kind of reaction we are taught to suppress, except in moments of

Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo has had a meteoric rise in the art world over the past couple of years – thanks, in part, to his eyebrow-raising commission of three portraits which were sent into space on Jeff Bezos’s rocket ship in 2021. Tech bros aside, Boafo is interested in subverting Western views of Africa and the diaspora through his brightly coloured oil and paper transfer paintings, and is becoming recognised for his portraits and figurative works. In some pieces, the figures elegantly recline, in others, they sit contemplatively, always with their eyes transfixed on the viewer. Inspired by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance, this exhibition at Gagosian will be Boafo’s first solo show in the UK.

Celebrated Korean-born, London-based artist Do Ho Suh will be the subject of a new Tate Modern exhibition opening in April. His work explores themes of globalisation and belonging, establishing him as a key figure in contemporary conversations on space and identity. Characterised by intricate, life-sized translucent fabric installations of interior spaces and objects, freestanding in space and held together by thin metal poles, Suh draws from experiences of migration – the works represent places that Suh has either lived or worked in, exploring the emotional and personal significance of the home in a time of global displacement. This exhibition at the Tate Modern will showcase his work across three decades, including brand-new, site-specific works on display.  

Regarded as one of the UK’s most influential contemporary artists, this new exhibition at Tate Britain surveys Ed Atkins’ career to date, showcasing 15 years of work spanning computer-generated videos, animations, sculpture, installation, sound, painting and drawing. At the heart of it is a series of 700 drawings on Post-It notes, each delicately stuck in place by its adhesive strip, arranged and framed in grids. The intimate sketches – sometimes in coloured biro, sometimes in graphite – range from messages of devotion (‘I love you x’) to surreal images, like a bird’s claw clutching a log, a giant match struck between two terrified faces and a human mouth revealing a sharp canine tooth. Created for his daughter during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, Atkins describes the on-going Post-It drawings as ‘the best things I’ve ever made’, and you can sense the deep affection and care that went into making them. These heart-warming works serve as emotional anchors, showing the deeply personal yet universal concerns that underlie Atkins’ broader exploration of technology and identity.  Throughout the exhibition, Atkins’ voice is unmistakable. He even writes the wall labels in the first person. In many of his video works, Atkins is represented by digital avatars in life-like renders, as visitors are guided through a landscape of CGI projections, installations of moving bed sheets, corridors of period costumes hanging on clothing racks and a muted 24-hour television broadcast of Sky News. H