Tilda Swinton Portrait Exhibition to Be Curated by the Actress Herself

Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton to curate gallery exhibition featuring portraits of herself titled Tilda Swinton — Ongoing.

Catherine Matilda Swinton was born November 5, 1960. She is a British actress known for her decades long career including portrayals of eccentric and polarizing characters and her career is prolific with a list of credits spanning over sixty roles in film and a dozen in television. Her list of awards is just as impressive, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Actress, the British Academy Film Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress.

With so many acting credits and accolades to her name, Tilda Swinton has also been the muse for many photographers, filmmakers, and artists of all genres. Her penchant for playing eccentric characters is displayed in her portraits which are collaborative, an artistic partnership in which she plays an active role.

Swinton’s close friendship with photographers and collaborators will be on display in her upcoming exhibition Tilda Swinton — Ongoing. Images featured will include those in Swinton’s personal archive, as well as work by prominent photographers and artists. The show will be on view September 28, 2025 until to February 8, 2026 at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Works featured are described by Eye to “take shape across multiple forms.”

“Swinton presents eight works in partnership with her creative collaborators. Five of these are co-created with filmmakers Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Jim Jarmusch, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The sixth, a performance and installation, is being developed with fashion historian and curator Olivier Saillard, drawing inspiration from Swinton’s personal archive. The seventh, captured through the lens of photographer Tim Walker, offers an intimate reflection on her roots. The legacy of filmmaker Derek Jarman also plays a prominent role in the exhibition: in the eighth work, Swinton is presenting never-before-seen archival material from his 8mm oeuvre,” Eye explains.

With Swinton’s collaboration and curation, Eye remarked in its exhibition announcement that, “the role of the performer has never taken center stage in quite this way.”

“Actors and performers are often seen as passive vessels to be filled or molded by directors. Tilda Swinton — Ongoing focuses on her active contribution, the potential for co-authorship, and creative agency,” Eye continues.

“By inviting collaborators with whom she has shared close working relationships, conversations and creative exchange over decades, Swinton reveals how these long-standing connections shape the films and (art)works that they create together.”

In a statement released by the museum, Swinton herself describes the distinction and significance of Tilda Swinton — Ongoing:

“With the honor of this extraordinary invitation, Eye has given me the opportunity to reflect on the mechanics of my working practice over the past forty years. And to come to rest on the – ever present – bedrock and battery of the close fellowships I found from the very first and continue to rely upon to this day. In focusing attention on profoundly enriching creative relationships in my life, we share the narratives and atmospheres that inspire us: we offer new work, especially commissioned for the Eye exhibition, as the most recent gestures borne out of various companionable conversations that keep me curious, engaged and nourished. An ongoing — and unbroken — thread of breadcrumbs through the wood, new leaves on long-established trees. The perpetual seedbed. I should be so lucky, in the gift of such an invitation, in such friends and in such a life.”

Image credits: Photographs by Tim Walker, Brigitte Lacombe, Ruediger Glatz, Jacqueline Lucas Palmer, Sandro Kopp, Swinton Archive