Nan Goldin to debut major new work at the Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery

Today, the Hayward Gallery announces further details of its major solo exhibition by acclaimed American artist and activist Nan Goldin, rounding off the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. Marking Goldin’s first institutional show in the UK since 2002, the presentation will debut a new film alongside other recent moving image works and photographs, offering a rare insight into how we can survive, empathise and find beauty in uncertain times.

Over the past five decades, Goldin has documented personal relationships, addiction and queer communities. Her unflinching images transformed photography by closing the distance between the observer and the observed, capturing the rawness of her own life. Comprising deeply intimate photographs and slideshows, her stories embrace the complexity of life as universal tales of love and loss.

Visitors will see new and recent films in spaces specially designed with architect Hala Wardé to convey the mood of each piece. Marking its public debut, You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part II (2026) will screen alongside You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part I (2024). Both films mark a striking new direction as Goldin shifts her focus away from humans and towards other species.

Shot on 16mm film, Part I is centred around a solar eclipse. The film is inspired by an ancient myth of animals stealing the sun. Shifting into a world entirely without humans, the work shows the full range of animal consciousness. Featuring music by Valerij Fedorenko and an original score by Mica Levi, Part I is dedicated to Sulala Animal Rescue: the oldest animal rescue in the Gaza Strip whom Goldin has worked with closely.

Created in close collaboration with filmmaker David Sherman, Part II is an abstract film comprising found footage, damaged soundtracks from old films and a new score by Mica Levi. The source material is old 16mm films – mostly nature documentaries from the 1960s and 70s when Goldin was growing up – which reflect the ways we were taught to view other species. The film then expands into a lyrical ode to the land, the animals and the minutiae of the natural world, remaining abstract while imbued with a deep sense of impending extinction.

The exhibition will also mark the UK premiere of Stendhal Syndrome (2024), which contrasts photographs of Goldin’s friends and lovers with classical art from museums around the world, revealing uncanny resemblances in composition, colour and emotion. Accompanied by a score by Soundwalk Collective, the work, in Goldin’s words, “shows that my people have always been here”.

Alongside it, Memory Lost (2019–2021) explores Goldin’s personal history with drugs and the darkness of addiction. Through slides capturing scenes from her own life and friendships, the film shows the ecstasy, mourning and pain of drug use. By connecting personal testimony with structural critique, Goldin advocates for harm reduction and the destigmatisation of drug use. The work is dedicated to P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), the activist group that Goldin started to combat the overdose crisis.

Upstairs, the Hayward Gallery will present a selection of Goldin’s photographs, including a new body of photographic prints connected to the You Never Did Anything Wrong films.

Altogether, You Never Did Anything Wrong celebrates Goldin’s enduring commitment to bearing witness: to intimacy, endurance, political struggle and the fragile conditions through which people, animals and the land must exist in the world.