London events

This Week in London – Borealis at Guildhall Yard; princess panto costumes; and ancient Greeks at the Science Museum…

by exploringlondon
Borealis. PICTURE: Doug Southall

• A dazzling light show inspired by the Northern Lights – one of the seven natural wonders of the world – can be seen in the Guildhall Yard this December. Borealis – which can be seen between 11th and 22nd December – is the work of artist Dan Acher and is one of a number of light displays which is illuminating London this winter as part of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ‘Winter Lights’ campaign. Others include an animal-themed display bringing to life the beasts that once lived at the Tower of London, an outdoor programme of installations and video art projections illuminating the Southbank Centre’s site, the ‘Illuminated River’ display lighting up nine of London’s bridges in what is be the longest public art project in the world, and a free Canary Wharf ‘Winter Lights Spectacular’ in January which will feature 20 new light commissions by some of the most innovative artists across the globe. In Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, thousands of illuminated white roses will form an ‘Ever After Garden’ designed by fashion designer Anya Hindmarch while traditional favourites like the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland as well as winter markets and ice rinks at locations like the Natural History Museum and Somerset House are also once again returning to the city. London’s red buses are an easy way to see the Christmas lights this year with routes 12, 94, 98, 139 and 390 all travelling through Oxford Circus. Free tickets to Borealis can be booked at www.visitlondon.com/Borealis while, for more on the best bus routes, see https://londonblog.tfl.gov.uk/festive-bus-routes/. For more information on all the light shows and events (some of which are already underway), see visitlondon.com    .

• Costumes worn by then Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret in wartime-era pantomimes are at the heart of a new display at Windsor Castle this Christmas. The princesses spent much of their time at Windsor during World War II – away from the Blitz in London – and, between 1941 and 1944, they performed in and helped to stage a series of pantomimes to raise money for the Royal Household Wool Fund which supplied knitting wool to make comforters for soldiers fighting at the front. Six of the costumes they wore have been brought together for the first time and are being displayed in the castle’s Waterloo Chamber where the pantos were originally performed. The costumes on show were worn in the last two pantos – Aladdin, which was performed in 1943, and Old Mother Red Riding Boots which was performed in 1944. Also on show are 16 large scale pictures of fairy-tale characters that were pasted around the walls to create the space for the performances. Visitors to Windsor this Christmas will also see State Apartments decorated for the festive season and a 20 foot high Christmas tree in St George’s Hall. The Semi-State Rooms, created for King George IV and now used for official entertaining, are also now open to visitors. The costumes can be seen until 31st January. Admission charges apply. For more on the Christmas activities at Windsor, including a ‘Mary, Queen of Scots at Christmas Family Activity Day’ on 18th December, see www.rct.uk/whatson/. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace is offering guided tours of the State Rooms over winter with special family guided tours available for the first time. The tours run until 30th January. Admission charge applies. For more on the guided tours, head here and for more on the family tours, head here.

• The ancient Greeks’ pursuit of knowledge is the subject of a new exhibition which has opened at the Science Museum in South Kensington. Ancient Greeks: Science and Wisdom takes visitors on a journey in which they will sail the perilous seas with a statue of Hermes that was discovered on a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, experience the lost music of the aulos instrument through interactive displays and an exclusive video that reimagines its ancient sounds, and gaze at the starry cosmos through ancient Greek eyes via a beautiful and rare silver globe depicting the known constellations and a Byzantine sundial-calendar – the second oldest known geared mechanism in the world. The free display can be seen until 5th June. Tickets are required – to book head to sciencemuseum.org.uk/ancient-greeks.

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This Week in London – Free family festival kicks off this weekend; Beano the subject of Somerset House exhibition; and, lawyer Helena Normanton honoured…

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• Pop-Up London, a free festival for families, kicks off in central London on Saturday and runs throughout the half-term break until 31st October. The festival features more than 300 artists – including musicians, dancers, comedy acts and circus performers – who can be seen in more than 100 performances at locations including Trafalgar Square, King’s Cross, Spitalfields, and Canary Wharf. The diverse range of acts will include Brazilian drumming, Cantonese story-telling and Caribbean steelpans. For the full list of events. head to www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/lets-do-london/pop-up-london.

The Bash Street Kids cut outs in ‘Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules’ PICTURE: Stephen Chung for Somerset House

• The world’s longest-running weekly comic, Beano, is celebrated in a new exhibition opening at Somerset House today. Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules features 100 comic artworks from the Beano archive exhibited, including original drawings never previously seen in public, and, works by contemporary artists including artist duo Gilbert & George, sculptor Phyllida Barlow and Oscar-winning animator Nick Park as well as larger-than-life recreations of Beano’s most iconic settings and interactive installations including Peter Liversidge’s patchwork of protest signs and a jukebox filled with music influenced by Beano’s rebellious streak. Beano was first released in 1938 and is still created weekly at its home in Dundee. This year marks the 70th since Dennis, Beano‘s top mischief-maker, made his debut. Runs until 6th March. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.somersethouse.org.uk/beano.

• Barrister and women’s rights advocate Helena Normanton (1882-1957) has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at her former home. The plaque at 22 Mecklenburgh Square – where Normanton lived from 1919 to 1931 – was unveiled almost 100 years since she passed her Bar finals on 26th October, 1921. Normanton played an instrumental tole in paving the way for women to practice law, being the first female students one of London’s Inns of Court, one of the first women to be called to the Bar, the first female counsel to lead a case in the High Court, the first woman to run a trial at the Old Bailey and the first women to lead murder trials in England as well as one of the first two women to take silk as King’s Counsel. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques.

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This Week in London – Open House London; The British Army in Germany; and, Christine Granville’s Blue Plaque…

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• It’s Open House London this weekend and, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, this programme features a host of documentary films, online events and self-led walking tours. Highlights from the festival, which runs over Saturday and Sunday with some additional events taking place until 27th September, include online tours of the HM Treasury in Whitehall (pictured) and Dorich House Museum in Kingston-upon-Thames, a self-guided walking tour of Fosters + Partners buildings in London’s centre, and the chance to visit Rochester Square in Marylebone. The programme features a series of collections of related events – such as those related to ‘colonial histories’ or ‘architecture for the climate emergency’ – to help make it easier for people to access. For the full programme of events, head to https://openhouselondon.open-city.org.uk. PICTURE: HM Treasury Building taken from the London Eye (Dave Kirkham/licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0/Image cropped)

• The work and lives of the more than million British Army soldiers who have served in Germany following World War II is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the National Army Museum in Chelsea next Tuesday. Foe to Friend: The British Army in Germany since 1945 charts how the Army helped to rebuild a broken nation in the aftermath of the war, provide protection during the Cold War and, later, how they used Germany as a base to deploy troops all around the world. It will include stories of family life as well as those involving espionage and massive military training exercises. The free exhibition can be seen until 1st July, 2021. For more, see www.nam.ac.uk.

• Christine Granville, Britain’s first and longest-serving female special agent, has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. The plaque is located at the 1 Lexham Gardens hotel (previously known as the Shelbourne Hotel) in Kensington which was Granville’s base after the war. Granville, who was once described by Churchill as his “favourite spy”, was born in Warsaw as Krystyna Skarbek. She joined  British intelligence after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and undertook missions including skiing over the snow-bound Polish border in temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius, smuggling microfilm revealing Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union across Europe and rescuing French Resistance agents from the Gestapo (in fact, it’s said she was also the inspiration for Vesper Lynd, a spy in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale). Christine Granville was one of her aliases she had been given during her time with intelligence and it was a name she decided to keep after the war. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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This Week in London – The Havering Hoard on show; and, Totally Thames returns…

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With the impact of the new rules being put in place to counter the coronavirus outbreak still being assessed, some scheduled events may be subject to change. As we would always advise anyway, please check with organisations before making any plans…

• The ‘Havering Hoard’ goes on display at the Museum of London Docklands on Friday, the first time it’s ever been on public display. Havering Hoard: A Bronze Age Mystery features all 453 objects found during an archaeological investigation in Havering in London’s east, in September, 2018. Dating from between c900 and c800 BC, the cache of items – the largest Bronze Age hoard ever found in London and the third largest find in the UK – includes fragments of swords and spears as well as tools including axeheads, sickles, gouges and awls, and terret rings, believed to prevent reins from tangling when horses were pulling a cart (these are the first examples found in England). There are also bracelet fragments, part of a double-sided razor, a ceramic loomweight and bronze pin decorated with amber which may have been used to secure a cloak. The display will explore questions surrounding who buried the hoard and why as well as why it was never recovered. Runs until 18th April. Admission charge applies. For more – including how to prebook tickets to the museum – see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/haveringhoard. PICTURE: Part of the hoard found in Havering (© Archaeological Solutions).

• Totally Thames – London’s annual celebration of its river – is once again underway with a program featuring art exhibitions and installations, tours and online performances. The events include an online performance of Whittington about the life of the City’s famous mayor, ‘Words on the Wind’ – an outdoor art installation in Kingston featuring a soundscape of recorded poets, and online tours of The Golden Hinde, a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s famous ship. Many events are free and the festival runs to the end of the month. For more, see https://thamesfestivaltrust.org.

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This Week in London – Family fun at London Transport Museum Depot; and, Science Museum reopens…

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• The London Transport Museum Depot in Acton Town has flung its doors open for 10 days of “special family fun”. The depot, which houses more than 320,000 items from the city’s transport history including vintage London buses and classic Tube trains, now features a special family-friendly trail for the 10 day season which takes a look at historic vehicles from the past 200 years including a yellow 1881 horse drawn ‘garden seat’ bus and a red 1938 Stock Tube train. The London Transport Miniature Railway will be running and all children visiting will receive a special sealed pack including a craft kit. Admission charges apply and tickets must be prebooked for times between 11am and 6pm until Sunday, 23rd August, and from Wednesday, 26th to Sunday 30th August. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-summer.

• The Science Museum in South Kensington reopened its doors this week after a closure of five months. As well as the innovative Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery – which features interactive exhibits and live, socially-distanced science demonstrations – and the world’s largest medical galleries – Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, visitors will be able to take in the temporary exhibition, Driverless: Who is in control?, the season of which has been extended to January next year. Tickets, which are free, must be pre-booked online and social distancing measures apply in the museum. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.

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This Week in London – VJ Day remembered; Steve McQueen; and, Windsor gardens…

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• The National Army Museum in Chelsea is joining with the Royal Air Force Museum, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to mark the 75th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) Day, this Saturday, 15th August, with a series of free events including online talks. Among those taking part are World War II veteran Captain Sir Tom Moore, recently knighted by the Queen for his efforts in helping raise funds for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic, author and explorer Levison Wood (who explores the story of his grandfather’s service in Burma), and Professor Tarak Barkawi, author of Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II, as well as General Lord Richards, Grand President of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League who’s involved in a conversation about the contribution of Commonwealth soldiers during the Far East campaign. For the full programme of events, head to www.nam.ac.uk/series/vj-day-75.

• Steve McQueen is back at Tate Modern. The exhibition, which reopened last Friday following the reopening of all Tate galleries, spans 20 years of McQueen’s work and features 14 major pieces spanning film, photography and sculpture. The exhibition adds to the three visitor routes already in place at the Tate Modern and coincides with McQueen’s latest artwork Year 3, an epic portrait of London’s Year 3 pupils created through a partnership between Tate, Artangel and A New Direction which can be seen at Tate Britain until 31st January. Visitors must prebook. For more, head to tate.org.uk/visit.

Beyond London (a new regular feature in which we include sites around Greater London)
• The East Terrace Garden at Windsor Castle – commissioned by King George IV in the 1820s – has opened to weekend visitors for the first time in decades. Overlooked by the castle’s famous east facade, the formal garden features clipped domes of yew and beds of 3,500 rose bushes planted in a geometric pattern around a central fountain. It was originally designed by architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville between 1824 and 1826 on the site of an old bowling green made for Charles II in the 1670s. Plants, including 34 orange trees sent by the French King Charles X, were specially imported for the garden and statues were brought from the Privy Gardens at Hampton Court, including a set of four bronze figures by Hubert Le Sueur which  were made for Charles I in the 1630s and which remain in the garden today. Prince Albert is known to have taken a particular interest in the garden and the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret grew vegetables there during World War II. As well as the opening of the East Terrace Garden on weekends, visitors with young children on Thursdays and Fridays in August are being given special access to the Castle’s Moat Garden beneath the iconic Round Tower, thought to have dated from the period of King Edward III and believed to be the setting for Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, the first story in Canterbury Tales. Pre-bookings essential. For more, see www.rct.uk.

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This Week in London – National Gallery works transformed into light and sound “experiences”

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• The National Gallery has unveiled a new project which sees some of its most famous works represented as 360 degree light and sound “experiences”. KIMA: Colour in 360, the work of the Analema Group, uses colour data to transforms the works which include Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Monet’s Water-Lilies, Setting Sun. While the first two works can be viewed online, a third – based on van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait – will come later. The work was commissioned by new digital studio National Gallery X (or NGX) and is part of a digital events programme which, on 16th June, will also see the first of a series of one-night immersive events being held in collaboration with London’s media art platform Art in Flux. ‘ART IN FLUX @ NGX’ will present cutting-edge artwork exploring the boundaries between art and technology and feature the work pf pioneering media artists, researchers and academics. To see the first two works and for more about the programme head to www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/analema-at-ngx. PICTURE: KIMA: Colour Van Gogh © Analema Group. 2020. 

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This Week in London – Take a virtual tour of The Crystal Palace (as it was); the ‘Virtual VE Day 75 Festival’; and, capturing life in lockdown…

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• It’s 169 years since the Crystal Palace served as the centrepiece of the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’ in Hyde Park but for the first time you now have a chance to tour the building virtually. The Royal Parks, working in partnership with educational virtual reality company, Seymour & Lerhn, have recreated the grand glass and iron structure which hosted thousands of exhibits from across the globe at the 1851 exhibition which was spear-headed by Prince Albert. The building has been regenerated digitally using The Royal Commission for the Exhibition’s archive of plans and images, as well as The Royal Parks’ historical documents including old maps. The tour overlays this historic footage over the site as it is now and visitors can switch between the two as well as learn about some of the fascinating stories connected to the Great Exhibition including that of the construction of the first ever public toilets and that of the lady who walked from Cornwall to attend the display. The virtual tour is free to access at www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/things-to-see-and-do/the-great-exhibition-virtual-tour.

• The National Museum of the Royal Navy, National Army Museum and Royal Air Force Museum are hosting their first tri-service celebration with a ‘Virtual VE Day 75 Festival’ to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. The festival runs from today until 9th May and kicks off with ‘Vying for Victory: Britain’s Navy, Army and Air Force in Myth and Memory’ featuring representatives from the museums discussing the service’s respective roles during the closing stages of World War II. Other events include a live webinar featuring historian and broadcaster James Holland speaking to the National Army Museum’s Dr Peter Johnston about ‘Why the Allies Won’, re-enactors sharing stories from real service personnel during the World War II, and an immersive walk-through of HMS Alliance which will provide insights into the isolation experience of submariners on VE Day.  For the full programme of events, head to Virtual VE Day 75 Festival.

• The National Portrait Gallery is launching a new community photography project to capture a snapshot of the nation during the coronavirus lockdown. People are being encouraged to submit pictures responding to three themes – ‘Helpers and Heroes’, ‘Your New Normal’ and ‘Acts of Kindness’ – to the project which is called Hold Still. Launched by the Duchess of Cambridge, patron of the gallery, this week, the project is open to Britons of all ages and will see 100 short-listed pictures featured in a digital exhibition. The closing date for submissions is 18th June. Head to www.npg.org.uk/hold-still/ for more.

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This Week in London – Gold phone returns to Eltham Palace; Nicolaes Maes at the National; and, Léon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy…

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• A 1930s gold coloured telephone which once belonged to eccentric millionaire Virginia Courtauld has gone on show at Eltham Palace in London’s south-west. The recently donated phone, which was saved from a skip in the 1980s, is one of only two surviving Siemens Bakelite telephones of the original 19 which were installed at the palace in 1936 for Virginia and her husband Stephen (the other remaining phone, located in Stephen’s library, is plain black). The phones – which included five placed in bedrooms – were commissioned by Virginia and remained in the property even after the Courtaulds moved out in May, 1944, and passed the lease to the Army Educational Corps. Renamed the Royal Army Educational Corps, that organisation was relocating out of Eltham Palace in the 1980s when all of the original 1930s telephones were thrown away. This gold telephone was rescued from the rubbish by a passing member of the RAEC and was recently donated to English Heritage. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/.

• The first exhibition devoted exclusively to Dutch artist Nicolaes Maes – one of Rembrandt’s most important pupils – opens at the National Gallery on Saturday. Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age features more than 35 paintings and drawings by the Dordrecht-born artist including a selection of the intimate scenes of domestic daily life for which he is best known. Included are early history scenes, mostly on biblical subjects that Maes painted in the style of Rembrandt when he joined his studio in Amsterdam in about 1650, as well as lesser-known portraits he created from 1673 onward after he settled in Amsterdam. Admission is free. The display can be seen until 31st March. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk. PICTURE: Nicolaes Maes, Girl at a Window (1653–5) © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

• The works of early 20th century Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert are the subject of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts opening on Sunday. Léon Spilliaert features some 80 works organised into four sections with highlights including Beech Trunks (1945), Young Woman on a Stool (1909), A Gust of Wind (1904), and Dike at night. Reflected lights (1908). Runs until 25th May. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Britain’s Baroque culture; a celebration of orchids and Indonesia; and, London’s “hidden” Underground…

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• Britain’s Baroque culture – spanning the period from the Restoration of King Charles II to the death of Queen Anne in 1714 – is the subject of a new exhibition which opened this week at Tate Britain. British Baroque: Power and Illusion – the first major exhibition on the subject – shows how magnificence was used to express status and influence and features works by painters including Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Sir James Thornhill as well as designs, prints and wooden models of the works of architects like Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor and Sir John Vanbrugh. The importance of portraiture, the visual differences in Protestant and Catholic worship and the illusions contained in painted baroque interiors are all explored in the display along with how the subject of war was dealt with through heroic equestrian portraiture, panoramic battle scenes and accompanying propaganda. The exhibition, which is being accompanied by a programme of events, runs until 19th April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk. PICTURE: Godfrey Kneller, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, c1706, National Portrait Gallery, London.

• The 25th Kew Orchid Festival kicks off at Kew Gardens on Saturday in a celebration of the wildlife and culture of Indonesia. Located in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, the festival will take visitors on an immersive journey evoking the sights, smells and sounds of Indonesia though a series of orchid displays which include a life-sized animals such as orang-utans, a tiger and a rhinoceros, an archway made of hundreds of carnivorous pitcher plants and an erupting volcano. A programme of evening events featuring gamelan music and traditional dancers as well as cooking demonstrations by renowned author and chef Petty Elliott is also planned – these must be booked online in advance. Admission charge applies. Runs until 8th March. For more, see www.kew.org.

• On Now: Hidden London: The Exhibition. This display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden takes visitors on an immersive journey to some of the secret places in the Tube network. Featuring rare archive photos, objects, vintage posters, secret diagrams and decorative tiles from disused stations, it uncovers stories such as how Churchill took shelter in the Railway Executive Committee’s bomb-proof headquarters deep underground at Down Street station at the height of the Blitz during World War II and how almost 2,000 members of staff, mostly women, worked in the Plessey aircraft underground factory located in two 2.5 mile-long tunnels on the eastern section of the Central line. The exhibition is being accompanied by a series of events including late openings and tours. Runs until next January. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/hidden-london#.

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This Week in London – The world’s largest medicine galleries; David Bomberg at the National Gallery; last NYE tickets…

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• The world’s largest museum galleries devoted to the history of medicine have opened at the Science Museum. The £24 million ‘Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries’ cover more than 3000 square metres across five galleries with exhibits all aimed at better understanding how the human body has transformed medicine. More than 3,000 artefacts from the collections of Henry Wellcome and the Science Museum Group are on display including 200-year-old wax anatomical models, the first stethoscope, lancets used by Edward Jenner in his smallpox vaccinations and medicine chests used on expeditions to Mount Everest and Antarctica. There’s also an intricate model of a 1930s hospital, a rare iron lung used by patients with polio and the world’s first MRI scanner, protein model and paramedic bicycle. Visitors also have the chance to step inside a Victorian-era pharmacy, discover what it takes to heart transplant surgery and treat a critically ill patient. There are also four specially commissioned artworks including life-sized portraits by Siân Davey presented along with the stories of individuals impacted by how medicine defines ‘normal’, Marc Quinn’s monumental bronze Self-Conscious Gene – inspired by inspired the tattooed body of model Rick Genest, Bloom – Studio Roso’s aerial sculpture representing the spread of diseases through populations and Santa Medicina, Eleanor Crook’s bronze sculpture of a figure that is both surgeon and saint and which encourages visitors to contemplate their relationship with mortality.  Entry is free. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk. PICTURE: The Medicine and Bodies gallery in Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries © Science Museum Group.  

• Nine of British modernist artist David Bomberg’s key works are being shown alongside images that influenced him in a new exhibition at the National Gallery. Young Bomberg and the Old Masters showcases Bomberg’s works including The Mud Bath (1914), Vision of Ezekiel (1912) and the first version of his war painting Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunnelling Company, Hill 60, St Eloi (c1918-19) alongside the likes of Botticelli’s Portrait of a Young Man and the studio of El Greco’s The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The display can be seen in Room 1 until 1st March. Admission is free. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

• The final 20,000 tickets for London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks are being released from noon today. This year’s display features more than 12,000 fireworks and 2,000 lighting cues choreographed to music and will start with the sound of Big Ben’s chimes (despite them  being silent due to renovation works this year). Tickets, priced at £10, must be purchased in advance to attend the event and those who aren’t lucky enough to get one can watch live on BBC One. To purchase tickets, head to www.london.gov.uk/nye.

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This Week in London – Flying cars and iconic vehicles at V&A; 150th anniversary of the Cutty Sark’s launch; and, Eco-Visionaries at the RA…

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• An autonomous flying car is among exhibits at a new exhibition focusing on the automobile at the V&A on Saturday. The flying car is one of 15 vehicles in Cars: Accelerating the Modern World which also features the first production car in existence – a 1925 Ford Model-T, a converted low-rider and a Firebird I concept car from 1953 (pictured). There’s also 250 associated objects to see – everything from a 1920s cloche hat designed for car travel to a series of hood ornaments produced by René Jules Lalique in the 1920s and a Michelin travel guide from 1900 –  in an examination of how the car changed our relationship to speed, the way we make and sell, and the landscape around us. Runs until 19th April. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk. PICTURE: General Motors Firebird I (XP-21) © General Motors Company, LLC

• The 150th anniversary of the launch of tea clipper, Cutty Sark, is being celebrated in Greenwich this weekend. Along with family friendly events including face painting, storytelling and craft, there will be an after dark anniversary classical concert and bespoke birthday cupcakes in the cafe. Admission charge applies (except for the 150th visitor who will go free as well as residents of Greenwich and Dumbarton, where the ship was built in 1869 – provided they have ID). For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark

• Artists, designers and architects from across the globe come together in a new exhibition at the Royal Academy addressing humanity’s ecological impact on the planet. Eco-Visionaries features works by 21 international practitioners in a range of media including film, sculpture, immersive installation, architectural models and full-scale prototypes. Highlights include the UK debut of the Rimini Protokol’s win > < win (2017) featuring a tank of live jellyfish, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s The Substitute (2019) in which visitors come face-to-face with a life-size digital reproduction of the now extinct northern white rhinoceros, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s The ice melting series (2002), and New York-based architecture studio WORKac’s 3.C.City: Climate, Convention, Cruise (2015). Admission charge applies. Runs until 23rd February. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

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This Week in London – The Krio people of Sierra Leone; photographer Tim Walker; blue plaques for Angela Carter and Martha Gellhorn; and, last chance to get NYE tickets…

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• The history and culture of the Krio people of Sierra Leone are the subject of a new display opening at the Museum of London Docklands tomorrow. The Krios of Sierra Leone explores the dress, architecture, language, lifestyle, traditions and history of the Krio community with contemporary objects from Krio Londoners on show as well as items related to the history of British colonial rule of Sierra Leone from the museum’s collections. Highlights include a large carved wooden printing block dating from around 1800, known as a ’tillet block’, that bears the crest of the Sierra Leone Company, a silver entrée dish which was presented to Thomas Cole, acting colonial secretary of Sierra Leone and assistant superintendent of Liberated Africans, who was responsible for assisting people freed from slave ships when they arrived in the colony, and, a typical Krio dress ensemble wore by Krio women. The free exhibition can be seen until 27th September next year. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/krios.

• Portraits of everyone from Sir David Attenborough to actor Tilda Swinton are on show as part of the largest ever exhibition of the work of photographer Tim Walker at the V&A. The display, Tim Walker: Wonderful Things (pictured above), features more than 150 new works inspired by the V&A’s collections and boasts more than 300 objects, encompassing photographs and the objects that inspired them as well as images of some of the biggest names in fashion – Lily Cole, Lindsey Wixson, Stella Tennant and Alexander McQueen among them – and portraits of such luminaries as Margaret Atwood, David Hockney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Claire Foy, Saoirse Ronan, Kate Moss, and artist Grayson Perry. Runs until 8th March. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk.

• Writers Angela Carter and Martha Gellhorn were both commemorated with English Heritage Blue Plaques earlier this month. Carter, an award-winning novelist, spent the last 16 years of her life at the property at 107, The Chase, in Clapham, and it was there she often tutored her then-student Kazuo Ishiguro and received fellow writers like JG Ballard, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. Meanwhile, Gellhorn, a war correspondent who reported on conflicts ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the Vietnam War, was commemorated with a blue plaque on her former top floor flat in Cadogan Square where she spent the last 28 years of her life. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

• The final release of tickets for this year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks go on sale from midday on Friday. Those who wish to attend the fireworks in central London must purchase a ticket priced at £10. To sign up for ticket updates and more information go to www.london.gov.uk/nye

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This Week in London – Open House London; street food explored; and, Antony Gormley…

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• It’s Open House London weekend and that means your chance to explore behind what are normally closed doors. More than 800 buildings are opening up to the public over the two day festival – this year’s theme is ‘social’ – and there’s an extensive programme of walks and architect-led tours with all events free to attend. While some buildings – like Number 10 Downing Street, BT Tower and the US Embassy London – are only open to those who were successful in already-held public ballots, there’s still plenty to see for those who have’t scored a place. Highlights include a chance to see inside first-time participants like Millennium Mills in Royal Docks (pictured above), the new Museum of London in West Smithfield and the new social housing estate, Kings Crescent Estate in Hackney, as well as a Tokyo Bike cycle tour, and By Beck Road 19 – a Bethnal Green terrace serving as an open-door art gallery. There’s also the chance to see inspiring residences like Open Practice Architecture’s Gin Distillery and Nimtim Architect’s Block House, family activities and the Open House ‘Elements’ photography competition to take part it. For the full programme of events, head to www.openhouselondon.org.uk.

• Images of London’s street food and hawkers, spanning the 16th to the 19th centuries, have gone on show at a new open-air exhibition in Aldgate Square. Hot Peascods! explores how selling food, which could require little more investment than buying basket and the first batch of pies or eels or gingerbread, provided an income for those who couldn’t find other work and was relied upon as a source of food for those who were so poor they couldn’t afford cooking facilities at home. As well as images, it features interviews recorded in the 1850s by pioneering social reformer Henry Mayhew. The exhibition, which is curated by the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Library, can be seen in Aldgate Square until 29th September and then moves to Guildhall Yard where it can be seen between 1st and 16th October. Free.

• The work of acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Royal Academy of Arts on Saturday. Antony Gormley, which spans all 13 rooms in the RA’s Main Galleries, brings together both existing and specially conceived new works. They include Iron Baby (1999) located in the Annenberg Courtyard, works from the 70s and 80s like Land, Sea and Air (1977-79) and Fruits of the Earth (1978-79) in which natural and man-made objects are wrapped in lead (these evolved into Gormley’s ‘body case’ sculptures), and a series of concrete works from the 1990s including Flesh (1990). There are a series of whole-of-room installations including Lost Horizon I (2008) which features 24 cast-iron figures, and Host in which an entire gallery is filled, to a depth of 23 centimetres, with seawater and clay, while at the centre of the exhibition are two of Gormley’s early ‘expansion’ works, Body and Fruit, both from 1991-3. The exhibition also includes a selection of works on paper including Mould (1981), the Body and Light drawings, Linseed Oil Works (1985-1990), Double Moment (1987), and the Red Earth drawings (1987-1998). Runs until 3rd December. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Blake at the Tate; London’s scientific contributions explored; and, dining out in the Tower moat…

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• The largest survey of the work of visionary artist and poet William Blake to be seen in the UK in a generation has opened at the Tate Britain in Millbank. William Blake features more than 300 works with highlights including The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan (c1805-9) and The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth (c1805) which, in a bid to see them as Blake intended, have been digitally enlarged and projected onto the gallery’s wall, providing them with the sort of the scale he had envisaged for them but never realised. The actual works themselves are displayed nearby in a recreation of the artist’s only significant attempt to acquire a public reputation as a painter – his ill-fated exhibition of 1809 which took place in a room over his family’s hosiery shop. The exhibition also provides a focus on London, described as a “constant inspiration” for Blake, and highlights the vital role of his wife Catherine played in the creation of his engravings and illuminated books with illustrations to Pilgrim’s Progress (1824-27) and a copy of the book The complaint, and the consolation Night Thoughts (1797) on display, both of which are thought to have been coloured by Catherine. Other highlights include what is thought to be the only self-portrait of Blake – exhibited in the UK for the first time, the work Albion Rose (c1793) depicting the mythical founding of Britain, illuminated books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) and some of his best-known paintings including Newton (1795-c1805 – pictured above) and Ghost of a Flea (c1819-20). The exhibition closes with The Ancient of Days (1827), a frontispiece for an edition of Europe: A Prophecy, which was completed only days before Blake’s death. Runs until 2nd February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk. PICTURE: William Blake (1757-1827) Newton 1795-c1805 (Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper, 460 x 600mm Tate).

• A new gallery exploring how London’s scientists and artisans transformed our understanding of the world over 250 years spanning the period from the mid-16th century to the end of the 18th century opens at the Science Museum in South Kensington today. The 650 square metre gallery, known as ‘Science City 1550-1800: The Linbury Gallery’, features iconic objects such as Sir Isaac Newton’s famous work, Principia Mathematica, Robert Hooke’s microscope (pictured), and objects including an air pump and ‘Philosophical Table’ which were commissioned by King George III as the king conducted his own scientific investigations. There’s also a range of machine models including one of a pile driving machine used in the construction of Westminster Bridge in the 1740s. The gallery is free to visit. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.ac.uk. PICTURE: Microscope designed by Robert Hooke, 1671-1700 formerly in the George III collection, King’s College London © Science Museum Group

• The Tower of London Food Festival is being held in the fortress’ dry moat this weekend. Culinary talents including Chris Bavin and Emily Roux are among those offering live cookery demonstrations while visitors can put their own skills to the test with masterclasses. There’s also wine and sherry tasting sessions, an expanded array of food and drink to sample, activities for kids including cookery classes, games and face painting, and the Bandstand is back with deckchairs to relax in. Admission is included with entry to the Tower. Closes on Sunday. For more, see www.hrpfoodfestivals.com.

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This Week in London – Women in the British Army; communications secrets exposed; and, cinema at Somerset House…

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• An exhibition exploring the changing roles of women in the British Army from 1917 to the present day has opened at the National Army Museum in Chelsea. Rise of the Lionesses, which is being held in partnership with the WRAC Association, charts the major contributions women have made to the Army’s history as well as how perceptions of “appropriate” roles for females have affected these contributions and how women have fought to redefine those roles. Highlights include the combat shirt and medical kit belonging to Sergeant Chantelle Taylor – the first female British soldier to kill in combat, the first Army-issue bra, and the vehicle chassis used to train Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) while she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II (pictured above). The free display can be seen until 20th October and is accompanied by a programme of public events. For more, head to this link. PICTURE: Courtesy of National Army Museum.

• Communications intelligence and cyber security are explored in an exhibition at the Science Museum, making the centenary of UK intelligence, security and cyber agency,  GCHQ. Top Secret: From ciphers to cyber security features more than 100 objects including cipher machines used during World War II, secure telephones of the type used by British Prime Ministers, and an encryption key used by the Queen. There’s also encryption technology used by Peter and Helen Kroger who, until their arrest in the 1960s, were part of the most successful Soviet spy ring in Cold War Britain, and the remains of the crushed hard drive alleged to contain top secret information which was given by Edward Snowden to The Guardian in 2013 while the work of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre is also explored with visitors able to see a computer infected with the WannaCry ransomware which, in 2017, affected thousands of people and organisations including the NHS. Runs until 23rd February. Admission is free. For more, head to www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.

• The pioneering work of Hungarian avant garde artist Dóra Maurer goes on show at the Tate Modern on South Bank next Monday in the first UK exhibition celebrating her five decade career. The free display brings together 35 of her works – from conceptual photographic series and experimental films to colourful graphic works and striking geometric paintings – with highlights including Seven Foldings (1975), Triolets (1981), Timing (1973/1980) and the six-metre-long Stage II (2016). The year-long display is one of several free displays opening at the Tate Modern this month. Others include an exhibition of Sol LeWitt’s graphic woodcut prints, a show featuring photograms, films, painting and drawings by Polish émigré artists Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson, and photography displays by Mitch Epstein, Naoya Hatakeyama and David Goldblatt. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• Cinema is being celebrated at Somerset House this month with the launch of Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House. The event includes courtyard screenings, specially curated DJ sets and live performances, and panel discussions from industry insiders. Actor Antonio Banderas will join Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar to introduce the festival’s opening night premiere, Pain and Glory, with other special guests including the cast of Shane Meadows’ BAFTA-award winning film This is England, Francis Lee, the director and writer of God’s Own Country, and  the film’s lead actor Josh O’Connor as well as Peter Webber, director of Inna de Yard. Runs from 8th to 21st August. For more, see www.somersethouse.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace; royal etchings; and, Ed Ruscha at Tate Modern…

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• The impact of Queen Victoria on Buckingham Palace, transforming what was empty residence into “the most glittering court in Europe”, is a special focus of this year’s summer opening of Buckingham Palace. Marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Queen, the exhibition Queen Victoria’s Palace recreates the music, dancing and entertaining that characterised the early part of the Queen’s reign using special effects and displays. Highlights include the Queen’s costume (pictured) for the Stuart Ball of 13th July, 1851, where attendees dressed in the style of King Charles II’s court. There’s also a recreation of a ball held in the palace’s newly completed Ballroom and Ball Supper Room on 17th June, 1856, to mark the end of the Crimean War and honour returning soldiers which uses a Victorian illusion technique known as Pepper’s Ghost to bring to life Louis Haghe’s watercolour, The Ball of 1856. The table in the State Dining Room, meanwhile, has been dressed with items from the ‘Victoria’ pattern dessert service, purchased by the Queen at the 1851 Great Exhibition, and the room also features the Alhambra table fountain, a silver-gilt and enamel centrepiece commissioned by Victoria and Albert in the same year, and silver-gilt pieces from the Grand Service, commissioned by the Queen’s uncle, King George IV, on which sit replica desserts based on a design by Queen Victoria’s chief cook, Charles Elme Francatelli. The summer opening runs until 29th September. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.rct.uk/visit/the-state-rooms-buckingham-palace. PICTURE: Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019

• The Victorian reign is also the subject of a new exhibition at the British Museum where rare etchings by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert have gone on display. At home: Royal etchings by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert features 20 artworks that they created during the early years of their marriage and depict scenes of their domestic lives at Windsor Castle and Claremont including images of their children and pets. The display includes three works donated to the museum by King George V, Queen Victoria’s grandson, in 1926, and it’s the first time they’ve gone on public display. Prince Albert introduced the Queen to the practice of etching soon after their wedding and under the guidance of Sir George Hayter they made their first works on 28th August, 1840. They would go on to collaborate on numerous works together. The display can be seen in Room 90a until mid-September. Admission is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org. PICTURE: The Princess Royal and Prince of Wales, 1843, by Albert, Prince Consort (after Queen Victoria) © The Trustees of the British Museum.

• American artist Ed Ruscha is the subject of the latest “Artist Rooms” annual free display in the Tate Modern’s Blavatnik building on South Bank. The display features works spanning Ruscha’s six-decade career, including large, text-based paintings and his iconic photographic series. There is also a display of Ruscha’s artist’s books – including Various Small Fires 1964 and Every Building on the Sunset Strip 1966 – as well as some 40 works on paper gifted to Tate by the artist. Highlights include his series of photographs of LA’s swimming pools and parking lots, paintings inspired by classic Hollywood cinema, and works such as DANCE? (1973), Pay Nothing Until April (2003) and Our Flag (2017). Runs until spring 2020. Admission is free. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Leonardo’s notebooks; London’s “lost” rivers; Africa celebrated; and, Natalia Goncharova…

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• Three of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are being displayed together in the UK for the first time as part of a new exhibition at the British Library marking 500 years since the artist’s death. Leonardo da Vinci: A Mind in Motion, which opens Friday and is being held in partnership with Automobili Pininfarina, will feature a selection of notes and drawings from the Codex Arundel, owned by the British Library, the Codex Forster, owned by the V&A, and the Codex Leicester, owned by US billionaire Bill Gates (and being displayed in the UK for the first time since Gates purchased it in 1994). They reveal Da Vinci’s close observations of natural phenomena and how these explorations of nature and motion directly informed his work as an inventor and artist. The exhibition, which runs to the 8th September, is being accompanied by a series of events and until Sunday, Automobili Pininfarina will be exhibiting a 1,900 hp, zero-emissions Battista hypercar on the British Library Piazza. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.bl.uk/events/leonardo-da-vinci-a-mind-in-motion. PICTURE: Part of the exhibition/courtesy British Library.

• The mysteries of London’s hidden rivers are revealed in an exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands. Secret Rivers brings together art and archaeology along with photography, film, and mudlarking finds to show how the city has been shaped by the Thames and its tributaries – and how they in turn have been shaped by Londoners. It explores how rivers including the Effra, Fleet, Neckinger, Lea, Tyburn, Walbrook, Wandle and Westbourne have all been “exploited for transport and industry, enjoyed and revered, and have influenced artists and writers”. Among items on display are rare surviving fragments of the 13th century Blackfriars Monastery which were used to line a well, a medieval fish trap, and drawings and prints depicting rivers – including James Lawson Stewart’s watercolour Jacob’s Island (1887) which depicts an artificial island located in the Neckinger at Bermondsey. The free exhibition runs until 27th October. A series of talks is accompanying the display. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands.

• All things African will be celebrated at the Open the Gate Festival in Shoreditch this weekend. The festival, one of a number of monthly key partner events being held in conjunction with the city’s new Africa in London festival – a summer long celebration of African culture and creativity, will be held at Rich Mix on Saturday and features live music, an African Market, family workshops and African street food. For more on the event and the Africa in London initiative, head to www.london.gov.uk/AfricaLDN.

• The UK’s first ever retrospective of Russian avant-garde artist Natalia Goncharova has opened in the Tate Modern’s Eyal Ofer Galleries this week. The exhibition brings together more than 160 international loans – including from Russia’s State Tretyakov Gallery, home of the largest collection of Goncharova works in the world – and features, at its heart, a room designed to evoke Goncharova’s remarkable 1913 retrospective at the Mikhailova Art Salon in Moscow which featured more than 800 works. Highlights of this show include Peasants Gathering Apples (1911), the monumental seven-part work The Harvest (1911) and nude paintings which led to her trial for obscenity as well as the four panel religious work Evangelists (1911), examples of her forays into fashion and interior design including Spring (1928) and Bathers (1922), a reunion of her ground-breaking works Linen, Loom + Woman (The Weaver) and The Forest (1911), and her collaborations with Ballets Russes including her costume designs for Le Coq d’or (The Golden Cockerel) and Les Noces (The Wedding) – performed on London stages in the 1920s and 1930s. Runs until 8th September. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – London’s architecture on show; D-Day commemorations at Duxford; and, Frank Bowling at the Tate…

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• An exhibition charting the changing architecture of London opens at the Guildhall Art Gallery on Friday. Architecture of London features more than 80 works by more than 60 artists and spans the period from the 17th century to the present day. The display is arranged thematically and starts with views of London before exploring the city’s continuous transformation – including its rebuilding after World War II, moving on to portrayals of everyday London and finishing with a focus on architectural details that help form the rich tapestry of the city’s built form. Highlights include a rare Jacobean view of London – Old St Paul’s Diptych (1616), Canaletto’s London Seen Through an Arch of Westminster Bridge (1747), David Ghilchik’s Out of the Ruins at Cripplegate (1962), Richard IB Walker’s London from Cromwell Tower, Barbican (1977), and works by Spencer Gore, Lucian Freud, and Frank Auerbach as well as Brendan Neiland’s Broadgate Reflections (1989) and Simon Ling’s paintings of East London. The exhibition, runs until 1st December, is being accompanied by a series of talks as well as a ‘Late View’ on 27th September. Admission charge applies.

The display forms part of the City of London Corporation’s outdoor public events programme, Fantastic Feats: the building of London, which celebrates London’s long-standing history of architectural and engineering firsts and looks at how these innovations have contributed to improving the lives of Londoners over the centuries. Another of the projects taking place under the Fantastic Feats umbrella is Illuminated River, an unprecedented light artwork by American architect Leo Villarreal and London-based Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands that will be installed on up to 15 of London’s bridges with the first four bridges – London, Cannon, Southwark, and Millennium – to be lit up this summer. Architectural drawings and visualisations of the project will be on show at Guildhall from Friday until 1st September sitting alongside paintings of the Thames from the gallery’s collection which have been selected by Villareal. Admission is free applies. For more on either exhibition and Fantastic Feats, follow this link. PICTURED: One of the panels from the Old St Paul’s Diptych by John Gypkin (1616) –  Society of Antiquaries of London.

• A mass flight display will take place over the historic Duxford airfield in Cambridge next week as part of commemorations surrounding the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. On 4th and 5th June, IWM Duxford will host the Daks over Duxford event, featuring the greatest number of Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft – also known as Dakotas – in one location since World War II as well as mass parachute jumps and flight displays. The event will also feature a mass flight display over Duxford as aircraft head off for Normandy where parachute landings will take place on 6th June in a recreation of the original D-Day landings. Duxford is located less than 50 miles from central London. Admission charges apply. For more see www.iwm.org.uk/daks-over-duxford.

• The first major retrospective of the work of British painter Frank Bowling opens at the Tate Britain on Friday. Frank Bowling will span the artist’s entire six decade career and will feature early works like Cover Girl (1966) – seen for the first time in the UK since it was painted, 10 of his celebrated ‘Map Paintings’ including Who’s Afraid of Barney Newman (1968) and Polish Rebecca (1971), examples of his ‘Poured Paintings’, sculptural works like his Great Thames paintings, and Sacha Jason Guyana Dreams (1989), a work inspired by the artist’s first visit to his birth country of Guyana with his son Sacha. Runs until 26th August. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – The written word at the British Library; London below ground; and, women artists at Tate Britain…

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• Carved stone inscriptions, medieval manuscripts and early printed works are among items on display in a new exhibition looking at the act of writing and its impact on human civilisation at the British Library. Writing: Making Your Mark spans five millennia and five continents and includes writing examples from more than 30 writing systems including Greek, Chinese and Arabic. Highlights include an 1,800-year-old ancient wax tablet, early 19th century Burmese tattooing instruments, the final diary entry of Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, James Joyce’s notes for Ulysses, Caxton’s 1476-7 printing of The Canterbury Tales – the first book printed in England, and the personal notebooks of Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (pictured). There’s also a 60,000 signature petition from 1905 protesting the first partition of Bengal, Mozart’s catalogue of his complete works from 1784-1791 featuring his handwriting and musical notation, and Alexander Fleming’s notebook in which he recorded his discovery of penicillin in 1928. A programme of events accompanies the exhibition which runs until 27th August. Admission charge applies. For more see www.bl.uk. PICTURE: © British Library.

• London’s forgotten rivers, tunnels, sewers, deep shelters, and the world’s first subterranean railway are all explored in a new free exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell. Under Ground London in part celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victorian engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette – who designed the scheme to overhaul the city’s sewers in the 19th century. As well as Bazalgette’s landmark work, the exhibition explores the legend of a cobbled street buried beneath today’s Oxford Street and tells the story of the Thames Tunnel which, when it opened in 1843, was the world’s first tunnel under a river. There’s also information on London’s ‘ghost stations’, including Strand and King William Street; and the Metropolitan Railway – the world’s first underground railway as well as images of the River Fleet, displayed for the first time. The display can be seen until 31st October. For more, follow this link.

• Women artists working in Britain in the past 60 years are being celebrated in a new display at the Tate Britain in Millbank. Sixty Years features about 60 works spanning painting, photography, sculpture, drawing and film and includes many recent acquisitions. Artists whose works are on show include Mona Hatoum, Sarah Lucas, Bridget Riley, Mary Martin and Anthea Hamilton. Highlights include Gillian Wearing’s film Sacha and Mum (1996), Susan Hiller’s large scale multimedia installation Belshazzar’s Feast, the Writing on Your Wall (1983-84), and two new mixed media works by Monster Chetwynd – Crazy Bat Lady (2018) and Jesus and Barabbas (Odd Man Out 2011) (2018). For more, see www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain.

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