UCL's world-class museums, galleries and theatres.
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18/07/2023
🏳️🌈 Save the date! 🏳️🌈
With just a few weeks left to catch Blueprints of Hope: Celebrating LGBTQ+ London, we're excited to close the exhibition event series with Q***r Tours of London - A Mince Through Time.
On 10 August, Dan de la Motte shines a light on London’s rich LGBTQ+ history through a creative and life-affirming interactive tour of Bloomsbury.
Starting at the UCL Octagon Gallery, Dan presents a snapshot of London’s vital q***r cityscape, past and present.
Hear stories of London’s q***r history, shedding light on the lives, spaces, identities, repression and resistance that form the backdrop of LGBTQ+ lives today.
Developing an exhibition, or keen to learn about the process?
'Blueprints of Hope' curators Gedney Common host a
UCL Curatorial Surgery this Friday (16 June) in the Object-Based Learning Lab.
Hear how the collective used academic research as a catalyst, from exhibition concept to realisation.
This surgery will be a chance for you to chat with concept creators, designers and producers who will be happy to listen to your ideas and advise you on the development of them.
👟 Inspired by the UCL 'City of Women London' project, join Living London for Camden Wanderings on 15 & 17 June!
Celebrating the lives and achievements of women and non-binary people (past and present) in London, the walk starts at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian & Sudanese Archaeology, and joins up hidden gems around Camden.
This walk will be led by Saira Niazi; writer, guide and founder of Living London.
Visit our free Badge Cafe hangout TODAY (2 June), a q***r badge-making session using old books and mags, and taking inspiration from current Octagon Gallery exhibition 'Blueprints of Hope'.
🏳️🌈 On 31 May, Blueprints of Hope exhibiting artist Nina Wakeford performs in the North Cloisters, 21:00-21:45:
Above this new tunnel the Market Tavern once stood. Grey concrete outside. Cherry red, dark, sexy, cruisy, inside.
Nina excavates and embodies LGBTQ+ history and proposes it as part of the new transport infrastructure of London.
Featuring words and music, Nina Wakeford stages parts of her book ‘Our Pink Depot: The Gay Underground FLO-N202-236000000-TRK-MST-00002-SAY-HELLO-WAVE-GOODBYE-KEN-NIE-BPS’ (Book Works 2019) and imagines a new Underground tube tunnel built below a demolished gay club as a new part of London q***r infrastructure – a ‘pink depot’.
With artist Harilay Rabenjamina, King Frankie, and Alexander Garnett-Scherer (Service Manager, TfL). Based on a project originally commissioned by Art on the Underground.
⏳ If you work or study at UCL, you still have 3 weeks to propose an exhibition or display for 2023-24.
Have a question or want to know more? Drop-in sessions next week in the Whistler Room near the Octagon Gallery:
👋 Mon 22 May 13:00-14:30
👋 Tues 23 May 13:00-14:30
Read more:
The UCL Museums and Cultural Programmes team are seeking proposals from individuals, departments or groups across UCL for engaging exhibitions and displays, to be hosted in the Wilkins Building across the 2023-24 academic year.
28/04/2023
Work or study at UCL?
The call-out for Octagon Gallery and Cloisters exhibition & display proposals for academic year 2023-24 is now live!
We want to hear from you if your exhibition or display idea is:
We're looking for an experienced freelance evaluation consultant to deliver evaluation for 'Prejudice in Power', a new programme of cultural activism for change against structural discrimination.
▪️ Artists, facilitators and researchers:
We're seeking proposals that explore contemporary impacts of eugenics in society, working with communities of interest, as part of new programme 'Prejudice in Power'.
'Blueprints of Hope: Celebrating LGBTQ+ London' has been curated by collective Gedney Common in response to UCL URBAN LABORATORY research evidencing a drop of 58% in London's LGBTQ+ venues between 2006 and 2017.
Bringing together the work of libraries, archives, community centres, activist groups and contemporary artists, the exhibition presents a snapshot of London’s vital q***r cityscape, past and present, and illuminates its role in providing a social and cultural lifeline for q***r communities. 🏳️🌈
🎉 Join us for a celebratory opening at 19:30 on Weds 8 March in the South Cloisters, Wilkins Building - all welcome, booking essential.
📢 A few weeks left to catch Objects of the Misanthropocene in the Octagon Gallery! 📢
On 1-2 Feb, artist Korallia Stergides aka Deep Love leads a free Exhibition Mis-tour, excavating and questioning its reimagined myths and facts.
Korallia is an interdisciplinary artist based between London and Cyprus. She uses autobiographical narrative and ecological fact to create new myth, and explores the embodiment of a place between reality and fiction.
📢 TODAY! Join exhibition artist Xiao Yuhan in the Octagon Gallery for a free Artist Talk in response to the current Objects of the Misanthropocene exhibition.
Welcome back to our Objects of the Misanthropocene free events programme!
💊 Kicking off with an Artist Talk next Wednesday is exhibition artist Xiao Yuhan.
Xiao Yuhan's current practice investigates the conceptualisation of health and illness enchanted by capitalist devices: the visual rhetoric, the aesthetic deliberation, the gimmick.
Artist Talk: Xiao Yuhan:
📍 Octagon Gallery
📅 Wednesday 18 January
🕜 1.30-2pm
Objects of the Misanthropocene runs in the Octagon Gallery until 10 February 2023.
11/01/2023
🗣 Language-learning showcase 'Not Just Words' at UCL Art Museum is a fantastic opportunity to be curious and get talking - check it out from today.
Free - open until 9 June.
💬 How do trends emerge in children’s names? What do 16th and 21st century social influencers have in common?
'Not Just Words' is an invitation to be curious and get talking. This showcase presents an innovative approach to language learning at UCL that takes artworks and objects as a starting point.
Visit the Museum to enjoy a growing video library of language tasters and discover surprising facts about language, culture and how the two are intertwined.
📷 Have you seen our latest North Cloisters display? 📷
'20 Years of Student Volunteering at UCL' celebrates the 20th anniversary of Students' Union UCL UCL Volunteering Service, through photography showing the incredible impact UCL students have made.
Visit the display in the Wilkins Building and explore the wide range of volunteering projects and community partnerships that UCL students have been involved with.
🚗 Open until January 2023, new South Cloisters display '175 Years of Mechanical Engineering at UCL' showcases advances in the field globally and at UCL. 💻
This two-part display celebrates mechanical engineering as a human endeavour. It reflects upon advancements that have revolutionised the modern world, as well as contributions from UCL’s own UCL Mechanical Engineering department at 175 years.
🌍 Curious about the Objects of the Misanthropocene exhibition (open now in the Octagon Gallery) and want to know more? 🎨
UCL Slade School of Fine Art Lunchtime Lecture on 16 November is from Dr Dean Sully UCL Institute of Archaeology, exploring the process behind the exhibition, and the tensions between the voices of the artist and the institution.
Dean Sully is Associate Professor in Conservation at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, where he coordinates the MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums. He is a coordinator of the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies (CCHS) and the Curating the City Research Cluster, National Trust’s Conservation Advisor for Archaeological Artefacts, Emeritus Scientist-in-Residence at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, Conservator-in-Residence at the Material Museum, and Director of the Illegal Museum of Beyond.
📢 Our free Objects of the Misanthropocene events programme starts next week!📢
Using storytelling, objects & sound, 'Notes to Future Worlds from a Common Past' is at Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL for Being Human Festival, 7-8pm 15 Nov.
This interactive performance focuses on the human desires, fears and values accompanying breakthroughs throughout history. It asks: what kinds of values, knowledges, capabilities, fears and desires were created or lost during previous breakthroughs?
And which of these do we want to hold on to, redefine or transform as we enter, or live within, a future formed through climate crisis, agricultural disaster and emerging technologies?
🌍 This term's Objects of the Misanthropocene free events programme is now live! 🌍
🗣 15 November: Storytelling event at Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL for Being Human Festival
🗨 16 November: Slade School of Fine Art Lunchtime Lecture with Dr Dean Sully
✍️ 16 November: Invented Futures workshop for Being Human Festival
🎨 30 November: Artist Talk: Kimberly Selvaggi
More events to be announced.
Spaces for all are limited so we advise booking asap to avoid disappointment!
Read more and book now: bit.ly/3xRARyv
24/10/2022
On Wednesday evening, catch a powerful performance Bloomsbury Theatre by The Laryngectomy Choir, including 'From Silence into Song' by Philip Clemo, featuring the voices of Japanese hibakujumoku, or Survivor Trees. 🌳
🎶 Presented by Shout at Cancer & IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
🎫 Tickets £10/£6
🗣 Followed by Q&A
🗣 What’s it like to lose your voice box after throat cancer?
On Wednesday 26 October 7.30pm at Bloomsbury Theatre, Laryngectomy Choir gives a powerful performance of original pieces exploring how you can give back a voice that has been taken away.
Formed by IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, and laryngectomy charity Shout at Cancer, the Choir will also take part in an audience Q&A with Professor Martin Birchall (UCL Laryngology) and Shout at Cancer founder and director, Dr. Thomas Moors.
This event is part of the Performance Lab strand, where artists, researchers and students explore how live performance can animate research – and how research can inspire art.
As part of Black History Month, Students' Union UCL has taken this opportunity to showcase and highlight Black artistic talent with a free display in the South Cloisters: 'Students’ Union UCL celebrates Black History Month'.
The display aims to give visibility to some of the range of voices and experiences from across UCL.
🔎 Have you visited Objects of the Misanthropocene?
Join us for the exhibition launch next week to hear more about what might be the Octagon Gallery’s most curious exhibition to date...
Learn about the origins of the exhibition, hear from the minds behind the Illegal Museum of Beyond and connect with the artists whose works are on display.
A series of short talks and a panel discussion will be followed by a chance to view and discuss the exhibition in more detail.
📅 Wednesday 12 October, 4-5.30pm
📍 Object Based Learning Lab, moving to Octagon Gallery
🎨 What do religious wall paintings show us about the early artistic heritage of Ethiopia?
Visit the North Cloisters, Wilkins Building for a free display exploring sacred spaces and how Christian Ethiopians engaged with local and non-local communities through art.
⌛️ Open now until 10 February 2023, the Octagon Gallery, Wilkins Building, UCL presents new free exhibition 'Objects of the Misanthropocene: Unearthing futures'.
Set to revolutionise our understanding of time itself, the museum objects in this exhibition have been sent back to us from distant futures. Are they a warning?
Coming soon: ‘Objects of the Misanthropocene: Unearthing futures’.
Sent back in time from distant futures, the objects in our new free Octagon Gallery exhibition were unearthed from a remarkable crash site discovered during the construction of the UCL Student Centre in 2012.
What they reveal is set to revolutionise our understanding of the past, future and time itself.
It is with great sorrow that we hear of the death of Her Majesty The Queen, Queen Elizabeth II. We extend our very deepest sympathies and sincere condolences to the Royal Family at this extremely difficult time.
07/09/2022
🍂 Our autumn season is underway!
Free display 'Christian Art and Faith in the Ethiopian Empire' explores the early artistic heritage of Ethiopia through religious wall paintings.
Wall paintings in Ethiopian religious buildings reveal how Christian Ethiopians visualized and conceived sacred spaces, as well as how they engaged with local and non-local communities through art and other media.
Co-curated by conservators working for the Ethiopian Heritage Fund, UK-based scholars from Ethiopia and Eritrea, and members of the ITIESE project (UCL History of Art and Hamburg University).
📅 Open until 1 Nov
📍 North Cloisters, Wilkins Building
🎨 Led by UCL History of Art
Staff and students are invited to create objects for the ongoing online exhibition Objects of the Misanthropocene, exploring possible future worlds or alternative universes. 🌍
Work may also feature in the UCL Octagon Gallery from September!
🔬 Are you passionate about pathology and science collections? Do you have a flair for engaging diverse audiences and making collections inclusive?
We're looking for a Curator (Collections - Science) to work with our human pathology specimens & science apparatus and prototypes.
The Pathology Museum collection, containing nearly 6000 human pathology specimens, is an important and irreplaceable collection with clinical and research significance. It contains specimens from several London teaching hospitals such as the Middlesex Medical School, the Royal Free Hospital and the world-renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
UCL Science Collections reflect the university’s history of pioneering research and innovation in scientific advancement with objects including Nobel Prize-winning experimental apparatus, prototypes and historical teaching aids across the fields of physiology, electrical engineering, medical physics and eugenics.
These collections are an essential resource for our work enabling staff and students at UCL to critically reflect on our collective past, which we believe is crucial to our continuing scientific work in the present and future.
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Black Britain and Beyond Symposium: Being and Belonging
We are UCL's world-class museums, galleries and theatres.
You’ll find most of our spaces in Bloomsbury in the heart of London. Nearly all our venues and activities are free and open to everyone.
In the university’s main building, UCL Art Museum cares for an important collection of sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings by artists past and present. Upstairs in the Flaxman Gallery you’ll find beautiful sculptures by artist John Flaxman under the university’s iconic dome.
Around the corner is the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, one of the greatest collections of ancient Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology in the world; and just across the road come and explore the animal kingdom at the Grant Museum of Zoology, one of the UK’s oldest natural history museums.
UCL is also where you can visit Jeremy Bentham’s famous auto-icon - the philosopher’s skeleton, wax head and clothes -on display in a wooden cabinet. Or book a ticket for the Bloomsbury Theatre for the best drama, live music, comedy and, of course, performances by the students and staff of UCL.
Further afield, the UCL Pathology Museum at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead is open for public events throughout the year.
You might find us us popping up with special events at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where the new UCL East campus is being built, too.
Call out for sound artists, poets and musicians – a unique opportunity to explore The Secret Life of Ponds! This new project from the Norfolk Ponds Project culminates in performances at the Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL and 2023.
The Secret Life of Ponds has been supported using public funding by Arts Council England and is run in partnership with UCL Culture, Hot Poets and The Nature Recovery Network.
Rcokwatchers may be interested in the next talk by UCL's GeoBus team -
The next Discover Earth Sciences Lecture is this Wednesday 16th March with Prof. Chris Kilburn!
Come and find out about Earth sciences and volcanic eruptions!🌋
Discover Earth Sciences is a live lecture series featuring UCL Earth scientists and showcasing where your A levels can take you!
About this event
Discover Earth Sciences is a live lecture series that will highlight the fascinating and diverse world of Earth science.
Where can your A Levels take you? Come along and listen to UCL Earth scientists as they showcase their research and how it links to what you're learning in your chemistry, physics and maths A Levels.
This lecture will be held live on zoom with opportunities to ask questions and find out more about UCL Earth sciences.
The lecture will be recorded, and the recording made available at a later date.
We had a chat with Ellen from UCL Culture, one of our UK customers! 🏛️
UCL Culture comprises a 500-seat theatre and some amazing galeries and museums, which they all manage with Yesplan.
Not only did our software improve their collaboration and accuracy, they also applaud our innovativeness! 👩💻
“The Yesplan team is always up for trying something new, which is very helpful. I know most companies would be like: “here are various templates, you must use the closest one to whatever you require”. But you are keen for developing something new.”
The project is the outcome of Tom's Concrete Canvas initiative, funded by a UCL Beacon Bursary. Designed by architect Mark Warren in collaboration with the D’Eynsford Tenant Management Organisation, estate residents, muralist LeSpleen and produced by Slade Lecturer Thomas Morgan Evans who is also a resident of the estate.
Home Court arial shot: Add Purpose
Concrete Canvas
Through his UCL Beacon Bursary, Thomas funded 10 weekly four-hour sessions for children and young people from and around the D’Eynsford Estate in southeast London. They worked with artists in creating a public artwork on the basketball court, taking part in learning exercises inspired by the mural painting that is currently taking place and discussing its design. The project aimed to support and encourage community home learning and physical activity for local young people in response to the changes to day-to-day living caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
UCL Culture
This afternoon we have been busy installing "We are not alone:" .
Thanks to UCL and UCL Culture for helping us set up and loaning such unique items which help illustrate and explore the history of eugenics.
This mini exhibition, curated by Professor Marius Turda Oxford Brookes University, opens tomorrow and runs until 30 September!
Congratulations to members of the IOE community for winning UCL Culture grants for research projects that will give voice to victims of violence, Black and Minority Ethnic women and girls, refugees and others who are rarely heard in academia.
There's a lot of stuff we miss from our pre-lockdown days - like walking down to a museum and finding something fascinating. Well, good news - the Grant Museum of Zoology, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and UCL Art Museum have all reopened and are really interesting places to spend an afternoon!
Now available on YouTube 'Taking Care of Business: What is a Museum For?' with Subhadra Das from UCL Culture and Marenka Thompson-Odlum from Pitt Rivers Museum as part of the TAKING CARE Project https://bit.ly/3hOLcUv
Join us at 14.00 tomorrow afternoon for the next session in which Subhadra Das (UCL Culture) & Marenka Thompson-Odlum (Pitt Rivers Museum) discuss 'What is a Museum for?' More info & booking details at https://bit.ly/3o76ZYP
Be sure not to miss the Trellis Festival starting next week online, Monday 12 to Sunday 18 April 2021.
'Trellis: Public Art' is a programme of knowledge exchange between researchers and artists in the East End. UCL Culture
Book your place https://bit.ly/3cGbyFm
12.10.11 - Antoine Hénaut aux Pédas à l'UCL Culture Mons
12.10.11 - Antoine Hénaut à Midi en Scène à l'UCL Culture Mons
11.10.11 - Antoine Hénaut au Pavillon à l'UCL Culture Mons
Our list of artists to follow on Instagram this year is here! 💥
I have so missed my work at British Museum & UCL Culture Petrie Museum 🏛 The way of things during the is to have some great lectures for the conference & an online launch party 👩🏻💻 for the new entrance at 🏺Professor Irving Finkel was as as entertaining as ever ❤️ Miss you guys! ❤️
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