Some of the world’s top creators, including inventors, artists, scientists, designers and curators have teamed up again for the return of The Great Exhibition Road Festival.
The event, which will take place this coming weekend, is set to feature a host of cutting edge and innovative displays where art, music, design and science collide, in a free two-day extravaganza.
The annual festival, which is presented by Imperial College London with partners including the Natural History Museum, Royal College of Music, Science Museum, V&A, and Royal Albert Hall, promises to be even bigger and more spectacular than last year’s.
This summer’s offering will have “hundreds of free events that will see scientists step out of their labs and artists leave their studios, bringing along their inventions, prototypes and wildest imaginings,” say organisers.
Highlights include the ambitious Paint Lab - an ever-changing street-sized art gallery on Exhibition Road and a multicoloured silent disco dancefloor powered by atoms.
Other must-sees are a dynamic art installation inspired by the lockdown, a musical journey through the solar system and a very topical exploration of how humans and machines will co-exist in the future. There’s also a barrage of quirky food stalls as traipsing through this vast exhibition is bound to stir up an appetite.
The yearly sumer event is inspired by the iconic Great Exhibition of 1851 - the first ever international exhibition of manufactured products.
Here is breakdown of some of this year’s festival’s biggest draws:
Paint Lab
A colour-filled live art gallery running the length of South Kensington’s Exhibition Road, will be created before the eyes of the public by artists and scientists.
They will also tell festivalgoers who inspired them as the work takes shape.
Smart Machines Zone
The public will be able to explore how humans and machines will interact in the future, from robotic friends and revolutionary tech to green transport innovations and smarter AI.
You’ll also see intelligent wheelchair technologies before donning the AI goggles and driving around a virtual South Kensington where autonomous vehicles are the norm.
Am I made of star dust?
The exhibit will aim to answer questions such as: How long would it take me to fly to a star? What would happen if I fell inside a black hole? Would I get a phone signal in space?
Award-winning scientist and BBC broadcaster Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE will be on board to answer countless questions about the Universe.
Future Food Live
Top chefs will create dishes before your eyes with new flavours and ingredients and share how to make meals for a healthy body, wallet - and planet.
There will be climate-friendly plates and a lesson in how insects and wrinkled peas can be a secret source of protein.
The Biggest Dinosaurs That Ever Lived
You’ll come face to face with a prehistoric giant and learn about the eating habits that helped make Titanosaurs so large.
Family Fun Zone
A chance to meet scientists, engineers, artists and inventors and design and build an earthquake-proof building, make friends with worms, become an urban wildlife explorer and meet an inventor of toys.
The Lost Art of Lacemaking
Discover the ancient tradition of making lace with a designer repopularising historic artforms through digital technologies. A fan of the complex patterns lacemaking creates, Zhaodi Feng - a graduate of the Royal College of art and Imperial’s Dyson School for Design Engineering - will show you the principles of lace making with an interactive musical device designed to encourage appreciation of bobbin lace in a new context, before creating your own lace mementos.
Rediscovering Black Portraiture
Find out how a moment of lockdown inspiration started a journey rediscovering the history of Black subjects in Western art and literature. Artist Peter Braithwaite’s stunning artwork will showcase historical depictions of black figures whose stories have previously been marginalised or erased. The images, which address social and political concerns, also stem from his own identity as a performer. Brathwaite’s exhibition will present and reimagine subjects and figures from the 11th century to the present day.
Photographing the Invisible
This exhibit captures unobservable sounds using photography and uncovers the physical principles that are developing the future of brain imaging.
Atom>Light>Dance: An atomic silent disco
Discover how atoms absorb and emit light to colour our world and hit the dance floor, finding the parallels between light and sound waves.
Brilliant Bodies Zone
Marvel at the ingenious engineering and design within us. Hook up to an EEG brain activity machine, explore our skeletal system, build spines out of clay and perform knee surgery, before completing a giant DNA puzzle to understand the story of our genetic code.
Building the Future Zone
From green concrete to permeable pavements, get hands on with innovative sustainable materials and learn about new ways of powering future cities. Build batteries from fruit and vegetables, learn how to power cities in an environmentally-friendly way and contribute to our sprawling cardboard model city of the future.
Japanese National Costumes Inspired by Nature
From formal uchikake to casual yukata, find out about Japan’s national costume, design a nature-inspired kimono and try a summer yukata. Uchikake are a type of outer kimono worn on formal occasions in Japan, for example by brides on their wedding day. At the Festival, children can learn about the different natural elements and their meanings, have a go at colouring in an uchikake, or take it one step further and enter a competition to design their own.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Britain’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, hosts maritime experts for a discussion on submarines, autonomous drones, satellite measurements and technologies that will go where no human has gone before.
The Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023 - Exhibition Road, South Kensington. June 17 and 18 from 12pm to 6pm
