Event Type Exhibitions
Event Type
All
Exhibitions
Family
Music
Performance & Film
Special Events & Hubs
Talks, Walks & Tours
Workshop
October
14octSee info for times22(See info for times) 26 Inspirations26 WritersEvent Type :Exhibitions

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 22 (Saturday)
Event Details
26 Inspirations is an exhibition featuring writers working in partnership with a wide range of artists. The show features writing, sound, illustration, photography, art, pottery and even perfumery. Writers’ group 26
Event Details
26 Inspirations is an exhibition featuring writers working in partnership with a wide range of artists. The show features writing, sound, illustration, photography, art, pottery and even perfumery.
Writers’ group 26 has been a Bloomsbury Festival partner for a number of years now. This year their writers were asked to focus on what inspires them. The dictionary definition is ‘from in + spirare’ “to breathe”, the theme of this year’s festival. So ‘inspiration’ is closely related to breath – and perhaps the simplest definition of the creative process is ‘inspiration leading to expression’.
Opening times:
9am – 6pm Mon – Fri; 10am – 4pm Sat (closed Sunday)
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
A selection of work from the Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition 2022 presented as an outdoor exhibition. The festival art competition invites applications from students who are studying art at university,
Event Details
A selection of work from the Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition 2022 presented as an outdoor exhibition. The festival art competition invites applications from students who are studying art at university, college or attending artist development programmes.
The exhibition features a variety of 2D artwork which demonstrates the wide range of talent emerging from art courses across the city. This exhibition features work from students at Central St Martin’s; City Lit; Goldsmiths College, University of London; Middlesex University: SOAS; Slade School of Fine Art, UCL; and University of the Arts, London.
Artists featured include Emma Todd, Eva Bachman, Jodie Braddick, Glenda Frieder, Jan Pimblett, Marika Tyler-Clark, Meha Shah, Natasha Natarajan, Siqi Huang and Yasmin Idris.
Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition and Group Exhibition 2022 is supported by The Bedford Estates. Artists’ prizes are offered by The Bedford Estates, Camden Together and H.I.G. Capital.
FREE – Just Turn Up
(Image: Artwork by Jodie Braddick)

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
Discover a fuller, richer history of London life in the eighteenth century, through the newly uncovered stories of children of colour in the care of the Foundling Hospital. Follow the
Event Details
Discover a fuller, richer history of London life in the eighteenth century, through the newly uncovered stories of children of colour in the care of the Foundling Hospital. Follow the life stories of more than a dozen children for a new perspective on the world of the eighteenth century world and of today.
As well as tracing the lives of the children, the exhibition explores their parents’ circumstances and what brought their mothers to the Foundling Hospital. People of colour, both free and enslaved, could be found throughout eighteenth-century Britain, but especially in London. Their presence was closely tied to Britain’s colonisation in the Caribbean and East Indies. Through the admission process the mothers came into contact with the Hospital’s Governors, and the exhibition also looks at their connections to colonial Britain and its immense financial rewards, showing how the threads of empire connected within the life of the institution.
There are no portraits of these children, and we have found them only through fleeting and tantalising references in the archive. Works by contemporary artists which reflect some part of their stories give the children a physical presence throughout the exhibition, and create an imaginative link between past and present.
Open: Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm; Sunday 11am – 5pm (closed Monday)
Tickets:
Admission includes all collections and exhibitions
Adult £10.50* / £9.50
Concessions £8.25* / £7.50
FREE for 21 & under, Foundling Friends & National Art Pass holders
* Ticket price includes Gift Aid
Tickets - Live Event
Book now via Foundling Museum Website14octSee info for times23(See info for times) MangledKois MiahEvent Type :Exhibitions

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Location
Brunswick Square Gardens/Lansdowne Terrace Railings
WC1N
Event Details
Mangled is a photographic study by Kois Miah that was borne in response to two seismic events – the global Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting national lockdown starting 23rd March
Event Details
Mangled is a photographic study by Kois Miah that was borne in response to two seismic events – the global Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting national lockdown starting 23rd March 2020; and the second being the loss of Miah’s dear friend to cancer on the 8th April 2020.
Jobeda Ali fought to live life on her own terms, even in her last days. She is the first one from our small group of friends to pass away and it hit hard. Her friends and family all mourn and celebrate her life, remember her in our conversations and in the things we do and the events around us that she is missing from.
Using an analogue camera, slowing down from the normal working pace, these environmental portraits are a reflection of our human relationships and the connections to life and death. They are an emotional response to the national lockdown that induced and exacerbated feelings of loss, grief, isolation, anger, sorrow, and eventually optimism, hope and renewal.
The photographs will be accompanied by 12 abstract pieces of writing and poetry from Jobeda’s close friendship circle.
FREE – Just Turn Up
14octSee info for times23(See info for times) 26 Orphans26 WritersEvent Type :Exhibitions

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
26 Orphans is an exhibition of writing about fictional characters, whose stories involve being abandoned early in life, orphaned or fostered. It’s a familiar theme in storytelling, but not often
Event Details
26 Orphans is an exhibition of writing about fictional characters, whose stories involve being abandoned early in life, orphaned or fostered. It’s a familiar theme in storytelling, but not often thought about deeply. This work by writers from writing organisation 26 has been inspired by the poet Lemn Sissay’s installation Superman was a Foundling that can be seen on the walls of the Foundling Museum in the heart of Bloomsbury. Lemn’s list includes David Copperfield, Harry Potter and Superman. Who would you pick?
The international group of writers from 26 have each chosen their own favourite fictional characters who lost natural parents in childhood. They have drawn on classic literature, childhood favourites, comic books and folklore, characters from film and modern drama. They have each created sestudes (a form that’s exactly 62 words). Visitors will be invited to find the 26 pieces of work on a digital trail around the museum, using the easy Smartify app.
There is one more twist: the writers are asked to incorporate breathe in their responses, the word representing the festival’s theme.
Open: Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm; Sunday 11am – 5pm (closed Monday)
Tickets:
Admission includes all collections and exhibitions
Adult £10.50* / £9.50
Concessions £8.25* / £7.50
FREE for 21 & under, Foundling Friends & National Art Pass holders
* Ticket price includes Gift Aid
Tickets - Live Event
Book now via Foundling Museum Website
Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
Jessica Strang’s images of Kings Cross taken during 1987 are a reminder of how Kings Cross looked before being given a new lease of life with its redevelopment around the
Event Details
Jessica Strang’s images of Kings Cross taken during 1987 are a reminder of how Kings Cross looked before being given a new lease of life with its redevelopment around the turn of the 21st century. This exhibition documents how the area looked before redevelopment. For some, the images will evoke a memory and for others these photographs of King’s Cross will show an unknown landscape. This is a reflection of the past for us to contrast with our present – an opportunity to see what someone saw before you as a beautiful visual ‘love letter’ to our current times and the future.
Jessica was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to London in the late 1950s to study at St Martin’s School of Art. She then became part of the Pentagram design group and started documenting London life with a stills camera and developing her own photographs. Jessica passed away in 2021 and this exhibition is curated by friends and family as a tribute to her work and the extensive collection of documentary photographs she has left for us to appreciate the past.
Open all day
FREE – Just Turn Up
14octSee info for times23(See info for times) Breathe:2022Dryden GoodwinEvent Type :Exhibitions

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
In 2012 Dryden Goodwin created Breathe, an animation of 1,300 drawings of his 5 year old son inhaling and exhaling, which was projected on the roof of St Thomas’ Hospital
Event Details
In 2012 Dryden Goodwin created Breathe, an animation of 1,300 drawings of his 5 year old son inhaling and exhaling, which was projected on the roof of St Thomas’ Hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament. Ten years later, Goodwin has revisited the subject, for Breathe:2022. Six Londoners bear witness to the continued impact of air pollution – and the power of activism – through their bodies and breath. Goodwin, a Lewisham resident, has drawn participants from Lewisham based local activist groups including Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Clean Air for Catford, The Ella Roberta Foundation, as well as a school child and Goodwin’s now 15 year old son. Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is one of those drawn, whose nine-year-old daughter Ella suffered a fatal asthma attack in 2013. Rosamund’s campaigning achieved a landmark ruling, in which Ella became the first person in Britain to have air pollution listed as a cause of her death at her inquest.
The Bloomsbury Festival shows 72 images from the over 1,000 drawings enlarged as posters along the Euston Road, one of the most polluted roads in the country. This outdoor exhibition links with wider public displays of the artwork across Lewisham, on buildings, under bridges and next to the South Circular. Also shown at the Wellcome Collection are 90 of the original drawings as part of the In the Air exhibition, which overlaps the first weekend of the Bloomsbury Festival.
Breathe:2022 will culminate in Lewisham in November, as a large outdoor video projection, animating over 1,000 drawings. Breathe:2022 asks us to both stay with the claustrophobia of ‘fighting for breath’ but begin to look upwards and outwards, towards the possibilities of community action and a clean air future for all. Connecting this global health emergency to the daily lives of London residents.
Originally produced by Invisible Dust and commissioned by the Albany for We Are Lewisham. We Are Lewisham is presented by Lewisham Council and the Albany as part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture 2022.
Breathe:2022 at the Bloomsbury Festival is supported by the SHM Foundation.
Find out more #Breathe2022.
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 14 (Friday) - 15 (Saturday)
Event Details
The Building Centre, the Architectural Association School of Architecture, the Museum of Architecture, and the British Council have come together to bring the 2021 British Pavilion from the 17th
Event Details
The Building Centre, the Architectural Association School of Architecture, the Museum of Architecture, and the British Council have come together to bring the 2021 British Pavilion from the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at la Biennale di Venezia – to London.
Commissioned by the British Council and curated by Madeleine Kessler and Manijeh Verghese of Unscene Architecture, the exhibition calls for new thinking around privately owned public space in cities across the UK. Taking inspiration from Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, the exhibition explores the UK’s privatised public space.
Open Friday 10am – 4pm & 6pm – 9pm, as part of the Festival opening event, the Store Street Global Garden Party
Saturday 10am – 4pm
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 15 (Saturday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
The Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition exhibition this year features three winners selected by our panel of judges. Each has a focus on a different interpretation of this year’s festival theme
Event Details
The Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition exhibition this year features three winners selected by our panel of judges. Each has a focus on a different interpretation of this year’s festival theme ‘Breathe’. Artists: Jan Pimblett, Glenda Frieder and Emma Todd.
Bloomsbury Festival Art Competition and Group Exhibition 2022 is supported by The Bedford Estates. Artists’ prizes are offered by The Bedford Estates, Camden Together and H.I.G. Capital.
Open Daily 12 noon – 6pm.
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 15 (Saturday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
Made using hand-dyed linen and quilted with hand embroidery, Christina Rose Brown’s textile works, feature drawings of the artist in bed with her two young children, in a liminal state
Event Details
Made using hand-dyed linen and quilted with hand embroidery, Christina Rose Brown’s textile works, feature drawings of the artist in bed with her two young children, in a liminal state between sleep and consciousness, that will be familiar to anyone who has shared a bed with restless babies. Her eldest child is autistic and, as is common for children with ASD, can suffer from severe sleep disturbances. These rare moments of dozing seem especially poignant but also fraught; listening for the moment that their breathing changes, it slows down signaling that they are finally asleep. The abstract quality of the stitched line on crumpled linen evokes that half-awake, half-asleep dreamlike state.
The linen is stained with tea. Tea is synonymous with British identity and also the experience of motherhood. From that first cup of extra sugary tea that mothers are given in hospital post-birth, to the endless half drunk cups left around the house. Tea is one of the first things we turn to at difficult times, how we look after ourselves and each other, how we express our love. Artist and Educator based in London. Following a Fine Art Degree at Kingston University and several years working within the creative industries in London, Christina completed her PGCE at The Institute of Education UCL. and studied for an MA in Art and Design in Education.
Christina works predominantly in textiles, in particular hand embroidery. Her work explores themes of identity, motherhood and the universal/personal lived experience. She has exhibited regularly in London, and organised workshops and events such as a families event for the Tate Modern, an interactive talk for teenagers on the Richard Prince exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, and workshops for homeless young people for the charity SPEAR.
Opening times:
10am – 5pm Mon – Fri
10am – 2 pm Sat,
12noon – 4pm Sun
Meet the Artist, Sat 15 & Sat 22, 12noon – 2pm
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 16 (Sunday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
A Lump in the Throat, an audio installation by GM Urso, aims to create an intimate space inside St George’s Bloomsbury where visitors can wander, pause, and listen. From the
Event Details
A Lump in the Throat, an audio installation by GM Urso, aims to create an intimate space inside St George’s Bloomsbury where visitors can wander, pause, and listen. From the distance only the instrumental version of Gluck’s Che farò senza Euridice? (What is life to me without thee?) can be heard but coming closer it is possible to make out a voice singing in English. It is Orfeo, crying in desperation at Euridice’s death. Gradually another language emerges, and then another, to emphasize the global proportion of the pandemic that has struck the world.
A Lump in the Throat not only functions as a memorial for the Coronavirus victims but also acknowledges the millions of people who have recovered from the illness, often coming back from an induced coma, at last able to breathe again. Hopefully, witnessing Orfeo’s despair, they can come to terms with their own trauma.
Open daily 3pm – 7pm.
FREE – Just Turn Up
17octSee info for times21(See info for times) Rest is ProtestUplightEvent Type :Exhibitions

Time
October 17 (Monday) - 21 (Friday)
Event Details
Uplight invites you to a creative installation that offers you a space to breathe in the tumult of the city. Rest is a political act and we are protesting the
Event Details
Uplight invites you to a creative installation that offers you a space to breathe in the tumult of the city. Rest is a political act and we are protesting the expectations of capitalism and productivity. It’s not always easy to breathe. One of the cities productions is pollution, a stone’s throw away is Euston Road one of the most polluted roads in London. All around we are faced with pollution, indoor pollution and outdoor pollution.
This installation will be commenting on the importance of being able to breathe easily and recognising the violence inflicted and death caused by pollution especially on those already at risk. The installation offers rest in a city that is addicted to business, productivity and amusement. Come rest as a dissent from societal expectations. We will be creating a space to breathe and helping you to breathe through the pain. We will be offering rest in a city that is addicted to business, productivity and amusement. Come rest as a dissent from the societal expectations that surround us. We invite you to take a breath.
Open daily 10am – 5pm
FREE – Just Turn Up

Time
October 20 (Thursday) - 23 (Sunday)
Event Details
A site-specific immersive experience that will explore the inner depths of The Crypt Gallery. Using video projections and sounds that evoke breath, it will envelop the viewer as they walk
Event Details
A site-specific immersive experience that will explore the inner depths of The Crypt Gallery. Using video projections and sounds that evoke breath, it will envelop the viewer as they walk through the space, drawing them ever closer to the beating heart of the building. It will be as if the very walls themselves are breathing.
The exhibition will lead the viewer through different types of breath, exploring how our bodies respond to fear, exhilaration, joy, orgasm. death and meditation. During the daytime it will be a free exhibition of immersive sights and sounds and at night the space will turn into a live performance with two dancers and one musician bringing the space alive and guiding the audience through a sensory journey.
Do Souls Breathe? will question what it means to be human. With so much of ourselves taken up by technological interactions we can easily get out of touch with our very physicality, what makes us human. It seems that our devices have become extensions of our bodies. At the same time, there is room to wonder if there is something that remains human beyond our physicality, a soul, an echo, an afterlife.
Open 11.30am – 1.30pm & 4pm – 6pm
FREE – Just Turn Up