By Ahana Ogle, Nutrition and Food Management with Foundation Year
Edited by Ben Jamieson, BA Broadcast and Digital Journalism
With COVID-19 restrictions largely lifted, life in London is returning to its pre-pandemic ways. The nights are drawing in and the weather is starting to turn, making it the perfect time to indulge in culture indoors. Read on to find out about what I think are the must-see exhibitions of the year. If you’re still worried about getting out there, heygo is a great tip-based platform to explore not only London but the world both indoors and outdoors, in real time from the comfort of your home.
Like Alice’s adventures, this immersive exhibition on until the end of December is wonderfully weird. It showcases three journeys: how the story came to be written, the story itself, and how the adventures have been recreated.
You progress through a sequence of rooms, each centring on a particular character or event, e.g. a pool of Alice’s tears raining down around you, or the Mad Hatter’s tea party, laid with 20 crockery places that morph from black and white to colourful paisley.
There’s even a virtual reality croquet game you can take part in, but come at a busy time and you might be waiting 20 minutes or more!
Once you’ve reached its end, this delightfully unhinged journey will leave you marvelling at how a children’s bestseller from the Victorian age defined our modern sense of life’s oddness.
Remaining open until the end of January, this exhibition showcasing Hokusai’s work has yet to be given the recognition it deserves, being housed in the museum’s low-lit Prints and Drawings gallery. Stick with it, it’s well worth it.
If you’ve ever seen any of Hokusai’s work, you’ll know that his exquisite shades of blue stay with you, so it was interesting to see the museum showcasing his lesser known black and white works.
In my opinion, a little more context should have been given behind the artist, but that didn’t prevent me from enjoying the exhibition. Do yourself a favour though, and enhance your enjoyability by conducting a little research on the artist/works before visiting the exhibition.
Open until the 2nd of January, the ‘Summer’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts showcases contemporary art and architecture from a whole host of artists, with this year’s theme being ‘Reclaiming Magic’. Anyone can enter their work, so if you see yourself as an emerging artist why not enter a piece next year? All the artworks in this exhibition are available to browse and buy online here.
My favourite artworks from this year include Eid Picnic by Sophia Bharmal, selling for £9,500, and When Birds Do Sing by Philip Sutton, selling for £35,000. Both just a little out of my budget!
Other exhibitions I will be visiting this year include Peru at the British Museum, Noguchi at the Barbican, and Faberge at the V&A Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art at 180 Strand – a place that’s been on my radar ever since visiting their very cool and immersive Ryoji Ikeda exhibition about a month ago, they’re a venue to keep tabs on for sure.
About the Writer: Ahana Ogle is a Nutrition and Food Management with Foundation Year student that enjoys the vibrancy of London living, trying different cuisines, and visiting museums and art galleries.