Ed Atkins is particularly attracted to the costumes from the Deutsche Oper Berlin's collection: the masses of different fabrics are lined up in dense rows on sober clothes rails like a compressed store of stories and memories. Each individual item of clothing would tell its own story if you took it off the rail: about the opera in which it was used, about the people who wore it and about the dreams it triggers in anyone who looks at it. For him, this analogue part of his installation forms a counterpart to his video installations, which stage fragments of stories from today's flood of images from digital media, some whimsical, some disturbing. This tension between costumes, opera stories and contemporary films forms the narrative core of Ed Atkins‘ work as a visual and narrative artist – at the same time, he is a contributor to the libretto of Rebecca Saunders’ world premiere LASH on 20 June 2025 on the stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Ed Atkins is one of the most versatile British artists of his generation and has attracted international attention as a visual artist, writer, and filmmaker. Atkins lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include ‘Refuse’ at Tank, Shanghai (2022), ‘Get Life / Love's Work’ at the New Museum, New York (2021), as well as exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Bregenz and K21 Düsseldorf (both 2019), at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, at the MMK Frankfurt and DHC/ART in Montréal (all 2017), at Castello di Rivoli and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, at The Kitchen New York, SMK Copenhagen (all 2016), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2015), The Serpentine Gallery London (2014), Julia Stoschek Collection Düsseldorf (2013) and MoMA PS1 (2012). Atkins was included in the 56th and 58th Venice Biennales, the 13th Lyon Biennale, and Performa 13 and 19.

An anthology of Ed’s texts, ‘A Primer for Cadavers’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2016, and an extensive artist’s monograph from Skira was released in 2017. An epic soliloquy, ‘Old Food’, was published by Fitzcarraldo in 2019, and a book of Atkins’ drawings for children was published by Koenig Books in 2021. ‘Sorcerer’, co-written and -directed with Steven Zultanski, was presented at Teater Revolver in Copenhagen in March, 2022.

In 2025, Ed will present his largest solo show to date at Tate Britain, and a book of confessions, ‘Flower’, will be published in April by Fitzcarraldo Editions.