UCL Festival of the Arts

Four Days Free at London’s Global University

Get a free taster of a world-class education at this year’s UCL Festival of the Arts!

Ranked fourth best university in the world by QS, UCL is once again opening its doors and offering the chance for everyone to experience, explore and engage with the latest research in Arts & Humanities from across the university with a range of free events.

Running from 27 - 30 May, this year’s special focus will be on the fascinating, unusual, and sometimes controversial objects from UCL’s hidden collections.

Over 30 free events will take place around the UCL Bloomsbury Campus, from film screenings, discussions and lectures to exhibitions, walking tours and musical performances.

Highlights of the UCL Festival of the Arts include:

• Slade Salon
The Slade School of Fine Art presents tasters of the School’s current research projects, including Dr Hayley Newman’s ‘Histoire Economique’, a series of frottages from banks in the City of London.
May 28, from 2.00 – 5.00pm

• Flickering, Lost, Forgotten: London's Silent Picture Palaces
Join Dr Chris O’Rourke to explore London’s silent cinema history through Bloomsbury and the West End: retracing the steps of early film-goers from the 1890s to the 1920s; from the peepshow kinetoscope machines to virtual train rides in Hale’s Tours; from one of the first cinemas in converted stables in Soho to the silent film industry in Wardour Street; from the Picture Palaces of Leicester Square to the Super Cinemas of Charing Cross Road.
May 28, from 2.00 – 3.30pm

• Jeremy Bentham and the Ones that Got Away
Dr Tim Causer tells the fascinating story of what is perhaps the most famous escape from captivity by prisoners transported to Australia. The Memorandoms of James Martin, the only surviving first-hand account of this event on loan from UCL’s Transcribe Bentham Project will also be on display.
May 29, from 1 – 2pm

• Music Revolution! Mozart. Rossini. Whatever Next?
In April 1817 opera in London changed: Mozart and Da Ponte's Don Giovanni (1787) was finally performed at the King's Theatre 30 years after its Prague debut. Why did it take so long for this masterpiece to reach London audiences? Will Bowers (UCL English) reveals more about the revolutionary decision to perform the opera for the first time, with operatic excerpts and a live piano accompaniment.
May 29, from 8.00 – 9.30pm

• This is Where we Came in. Memories of 60's Cinema-Going
The 1960s were pivotal but what were they really like? Permissive or conservative? Swinging London or kitchen sink? Dr Melvyn Stokes and Dr Matthew Jones present some indications from their research into the Cultural Memory of 1960s British Cinema-Going. Who did people go with? What did they do there? How did the cinemas operate? What does this tell about this turbulent decade?
May 28, 6.30pm – 7.30pm

A variety of other high-profile speakers, lecturers and public figures are set to participate in events, including artists Jo Volley and Henrietta Simson (Slade School of Fine Art), Dr Michael Stewart (UCL Anthropology), Professor John Took (UCL Italian), Professor Iwan Morgan (UCL Institute of the Americas) and Professor Mary Fulbrook (UCL German).