Our history

Humber Street Gallery was never meant to be forever. We launched as a pop-up in 2017 as part of Hull’s year as UK City of Culture, set up to deliver 365 days of transformative cultural programming. The goal was big and simple: fill the city with bold, brilliant cultural activity and see what stuck. We were here to try things, test ideas, break a few rules and make people look twice.

We opened with COUM Transmissions, a joyful explosion of noise, nudity and northern mischief. Later in the year came States of Play, a vibrant look at politics and play, and House of Kings & Queens, an intimate and defiant portrait of queer identity in Sierra Leone. But the gallery was just one part of the picture. The We Are Hull installation transformed the skyline. Blade made people stop and stare. LGBT50 celebrated love, pride and protest across the city. It was a fun, full-throttle year that the whole city got behind, from the business community to residents of every postcode. It captured Hull’s spirit and reflected it back in unexpected ways. We learned a lot and wanted to build on it.

After the spotlight moved on, we stayed. Absolutely Cultured, the company behind Hull’s City of Culture programme, evolved into something new. No longer a one-off event machine, we became a cultural organisation rooted in the city. It was a time of transition. Budgets got smaller. The team did too. But the ambition stayed. We tried different things, found our feet and began to shape what came next.

There was still big public work. FloodLights, Luminarium and Dominoes lit up the streets and filled the skyline and attracted huge crowds. Behind the scenes, we kept supporting artists through development programmes like Inter_Change and Fruit Factory Network. We ran workshops, mentored creatives and showed local work alongside international names. We also managed the blue-coated volunteers and supported Generation Hull, the city’s Local Cultural Education Partnership. Through it all, we started to realise that our biggest impact came from doing fewer things with more care. That meant centring our energy on Humber Street Gallery. It became our home and the heart of what we do.

In 2023, Humber Street Gallery became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. That support gave us room to focus, plan ahead and push the programme even further. The building is a vibrant, welcoming place to see contemporary art, meet friends, grab a drink or join a workshop. We’ve shown bold and brilliant work by artists including Jasleen Kaur, Jamie Crewe, Hetain Patel and Harold Offeh. Our exhibitions are ambitious, unexpected and made to get people talking.

We still work across the city, but with a tighter focus. Our community projects are now more closely linked to the gallery’s programme, creating deeper conversations and better connections. Whether we’re collaborating with artists, delivering workshops or working in neighbourhoods, everything links back to what’s happening inside the building. It’s not just about what you see on the walls. It’s about who’s part of the conversation.

We’re proud of what we’ve built and we’re just getting started. The programme is growing, the audience is growing and we’ve got big plans for the future. 

Stick with us. It’s going to be good.