Join artist Joy Gregory for an intimate conversation with Director of Whitechapel Gallery Gilane Tawadros, tracing the development of her artistic practice over time and speaking to her profound influence on the cultural landscape through the lens of her new exhibition, Catching Flies with Honey.
Spanning four decades, this landmark exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery brings together over 250 works encompassing photography, film, installation and textiles, all of which showcase and celebrate Gregory’s inventive, culturally resonant and materially rich practice.
Her work explores identity, history, race, gender and societal ideals of beauty, while expanding photography’s aesthetic and material possibilities. Gregory employs a diverse range of media and methods, encompassing Victorian photographic techniques such as cyanotypes and kallitypes, as well as digital media and performance. Conceptually rigorous and visually seductive, Gregory’s work invites important reflection on power structures, representation and cultural memory.
In this event, we will use the exhibition to interrogate Gregory’s status as pioneering force in contemporary photography, her enduring legacy and influence on a generation of artists and practitioners working with photography today, and situate her work within the broader landscape of British and international visual art.
