The first UK survey exhibition of Ed Atkins at Tate Britain (2 Apr. – 25 Aug. 2025) includes a new film, commissioned and produced by Hartwig Art Foundation: Nurses come and go, but none for me (2025).
The film by Ed Atkins and Steven Zultanski combines a performative reading of Philip Atkins’ (Ed’s father) diary, written during the six months leading up to his death, with the reenactment of The Ambulance Game, a role-playing game played by Atkins and his daughter. Originally private, both the diary and the game are now performed publicly, with the camera alternating between the performers and the audience, emphasising voyeurism and shared intimacy.
Exhibited at Tate Britain alongside Atkins’ writings, paintings, embroideries, video works, and drawings, Nurses come and go, but none for me (2025) marks both Hartwig Art Foundation’s first commission of a work by Ed Atkins and the artist's debut feature-length film.
Ed Atkins (UK, lives in Copenhagen) is best known for his video art and poetry. Over the past decade, he has created a complex body of work that considers the relationship between the corporeal and the digital, the ordinary and the uncanny, through high-definition computer-generated (CG) animations, theatrical environments, drawings, elliptical writings, and syncopated sound montages. In recent years, he has presented solo exhibitions at the New Museum, New York; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin; K21 Dusseldorf; Castello di Rivoli in Turin; Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; Serpentine Gallery in London, Kunsthalle Zürich, and MoMA PS1 in New York, among others.
In 2023, we presented the performance Epitaph and exhibited The worm from our collection as part of Holland Festival.