MERGE Festival, annual arts and music festival at Bankside, London

MERGE is an annual arts festival which draws upon the rich heritage and contemporary culture of Bankside. For one month this autumn, unique spaces in Bankside will be transformed with exhibitions, installations and musical performances by major and emerging UK and international artists. This year’s theme is ‘Art and Science’ and the programme of events includes innovative and ambitious works of art which celebrate science, discovery and encourage participation.

MERGE Festival highlights include:

Alex Chinneck’s ‘A Pound of Flesh for 50p’, a life size house like no other. This house on Southwark Street will be made from wax bricks that will gradually melt, leaving just the roof on the floor at the end of the festival.

Art duo Bompas and Parr bring the supernatural to life with ‘Sensed Presence’ at a secret haunted location. When worn, this unique headpiece is said to affect the part of the brain most susceptible to supernatural experiences.

British visual artist Peter William Holden combines art and music with science via robotic engineering with ‘SoleNoid’, tap dancing shoes that spring to life in a symphony of rhythms and taps that can be activated by members of the public via a control panel.

To encourage self-evaluation whilst walking around the Bankside area, Candy Chang has created ‘Sidewalk Psychiatry’, where various pavements in Bankside will feature classic lines you might hear in a psychiatrist’s office.

Located by the Tate Modern, every Saturday and Sunday the Riverside Stage will play host to a range of live music from a programme of emerging musicians and new talents. These include FREQUENCIES - Tune into Life which, in collaboration with the Science Gallery, will make the Riverside Stage its home on the 27th September and 5th October to explore the rhythms of our lives. Musicians will create experimental sounds that evoke the cells in our blood stream, fertilisation, birth and how pollution affects our breathing.