Talk. The painting Diana and Actaeon is a portal into a rich and complex story. The painting and the story contain plenty of material to spark lively debate. In this talk, Matthew Morgan draws connections between Titian’s depictions of Ovid’s tales and a particular type of metamorphosis that occurred when music and musicians from Trinidad travelled to England, prompting cultural change and exchange.

In Greek and Roman times, escaped slaves could seek sanctuary at the temples of Artemis. And later, in the Renaissance, Titian was painting at a time when slavery was an accepted and, indeed, growing practice in many parts of Europe.

Metamorphosis means a change in form, character or appearance. In Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’, these transformations are frequently violent, unwelcome and impossible to reverse.

Admission  17 May, 13:00 –13:30
Age 18 The painting is an adult theme

Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 5DN
020 7747 2885

Art. Sculptures and paintings as well as a ‘conceptual mix-tape’ produced specifically for the exhibition.

Taking key political symbols and historical iconography whilst sampling from the urban fabric of his surroundings, Erizku combines ‘high-art’ references, such as the notion of the ‘ready-made’, with popular culture.

Throughout Make America Great Again, Erizku plays with the sense of creation and destruction and assimilates a diverse range of forms and colours.

Admission 11:00 – 08:00 | Sat 10:30 – 14:30

12 Brook’s Mews
London
W1K 4DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 8888
Fax: +44 (0)20 7734 8892
info@benbrownfinearts.com

Exhibition. Photographs by award-winning Russian documentary photographer Sergey Ponomarev, featuring more than 60 unforgettable colour photographs from two recent bodies of work.

The exhibit covers

‘Assad’s Syria’ offers a rare insight into what life was really like for people living in Government-controlled areas of Syria in 2013-2014.

‘The Exodus’ captures the determination, endurance and suffering of people from Syria and elsewhere who sought asylum and a better life in Europe in 2015-2016.

Admission 10:00 last admission 17:00

Imperial War Museum
Lambeth Rd
London
SE1 6HZ
020 7416 5000

Exhibition. Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili unveils a new tapestry, handwoven by Dovecot Tapestry Studio

Ofili has been collaborating with the internationally renowned Dovecot Tapestry Studio to see his design translated into a handwoven tapestry. The imagery reflects Ofili’s ongoing interest in classical mythology and the stories, magic, and colour of the Trinidadian landscape he inhabits.

Admission 10:00 – 18:00 Fri 10:00 – 21:00

08 May, Curator’s introduction to Chris Ofili – 13–13:45pm
20 May, Weaving the Magic workshop 14:00 attendees have the opportunity to discover the creative process of weaving a tapestry,

Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 5DN
020 7747 2885

Play. An extraordinary story that explores the strength of marital love, the redemptive power of dance, and the survival of two women who live as neighbours

The wife of a commandant is throwing a party. She asks her husband for champagne. Instead he brings home a ballet dancer from the camp. An extraordinary story that explores the strength of marital love, the redemptive power of dance, and the survival of two women who live as neighbours – but are worlds apart.

Show Times 19:45 | 15:00

The Latchmere,
503 Battersea Park Rd,
SW11 3BW,
020 7978 7040

Tickets

Theatre. A gripping and tense play that explores the black struggle across generations and genders.

Fanuco doesn’t know he’s taking English lessons from the FBI’s most wanted woman.

She is the only American he knows, and he’s a Cuban teenager desperate to live the American Dream. When will he realise his mentor is Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther, a convicted felon and has a million dollars on her head? The world premiere of Ssebandeke’s gripping and tense play explores the black struggle across generations and genders.

The story of an imagined friendship.

Show Times 19:30 & 15:00 (Weds and Sats)

Young people’s night – 19 May
Caption Night – 25 May

Gate Theatre
11 Pembridge Road
Notting Hill Gate
London W11 3HQ
020 7229 0706

Tickets

Stage. Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor’s garden for seven years. Her 5 year old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily, exists inside Room.

Show Times 19:30 | 14:30
Duration TBC
Age 13+

Access performances

Signed: 25 May 19.30
Captioned: 26 May 19.30
Audio-description: 27 May 14.30

09 May Free Post Show Talk!
Join Writer Emma Donoghue and Director Cora Bissett for a discussion about bringing the book to the stage followed by an audience Q&A.

Gerry Raffles Square
London E15 1BN
020 8534 0310

Tickets

Workshops. Get in touch with your creativity in poet Rachel Long’s exclusive space for women of colour. Rachel has curated a new series centred on reading, writing and poetry.

The workshops in Rachel’s new series are:

Tuesday 25 April
How can we write powerfully about places, how we feel within them and where we fit?

Tuesday 30 May
In honour of Southbank Centre’s Alchemy festival, we focus on the ghazal form of lyric poetry, and read South Asian poets Kamala Das and Meena Kandasamy.

Tuesday 27 June
Take inspiration from music as we compose our own group soundtrack, dedicated to the displaced.

Tuesday 25 July
Explore contemporary African and African-diaspora poetry as we study poems by Warsan Shire, Kayo Chingonyi, Victoria-Anne Bulley and Safia Elhillo.

Tuesday 29 August
What is an image of summer without the sun? This session is dedicated in part to poems from Melissa Lee-Houghton’s collection Sunshine (Penned in the
Margins, 2016).

Tuesday 26 September
How can we communicate the incommunicable through poetry?

Age 18+
For black and minority ethnic women only.
Admission 18:30 – 20:30

Tickets £10 per session or £50 when booking for all 6 sessions
booking fee: £1.75 (Members £0.00)

Royal Festival Hall
Level 3 Function Room
Belvedere Road SE1 8XX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7960 4200

Art. The first exhibition dedicated to queer British art

Deeply personal and intimate works are presented alongside pieces aimed at a wider public, which helped to forge a sense of community when modern terminology of ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’ and ‘trans’ were unrecognised. Together, they reveal a remarkable range of identities and stories, from the playful to the political and from the erotic to the domestic.

Featuring works from 1861–1967 relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) identities, the show marks the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England. Queer British Art explores how artists expressed themselves in a time when established assumptions about gender and sexuality were being questioned and transformed.

Admission 10:00 – 18:00

Millbank
London
SW1P 4RG

Stage Play. A married father who leads his family into ruin as he falls head over heels in love with a goat

Martin is at the pinnacle of life: he has a loving wife and son, a hugely successful career as an architect, and the commission of a lifetime, but when he embarks upon an improbable and impossible love affair from which there is no return, he must face the dizzying, explosive consequences.

Show Times 19:30 15:00

18 Suffolk St, London SW1Y 4HT
+44 20 7930 8890
info@trh.co.uk

Exhibition. Explore the experience of those who travelled from the Caribbean and West Africa to live in London

This display brings together works from the 1960s and 1970s by eight photographers who documented Black communities in London: Raphael Albert, Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi, James Barnor, Colin Jones, Neil Kenlock, Dennis Morris, Syd Shelton and Al Vandenberg.

The photographs reveal the many and varied experiences of individuals who travelled from the Caribbean region and West Africa to live in London, from everyday family life to political engagement. They show people as they respond to, react against and move beyond the racial tension and exclusion that were part of life for Black communities in the British capital. The title of the display, ‘Stan Firm inna Inglan’, is taken from the poem It Dread inna Inglan by Linton Kwesi Johnson, who in the 1970s gave a voice and poetic form to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora and its resistance in the face of racism. The poem expresses in Jamaican patois (creole) the resolve of African, Asian and Caribbean immigrants to ‘stand firm in England’, asserting the determination of Black British communities to remain in Britain and declare it as their rightful home.

Open 10:00 – 18:00 daily

Millbank
London
SW1P 4RG
020 7887 8888

Tickets

Experience. Let your adrenaline levels go through the roof during a 50-minute white-knuckle ride on the Thames River.

Feel your excitement heighten as the boat’s engine roars into life and propels you toward iconic London landmarks like Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and St Paul’s Cathedral. Gaze at the sharp spire of the Shard as you reach speeds of up to 35 miles (56 km) per hour. Listen to fascinating commentary during slower periods of sailing and glide under the monumental Tower Bridge as your skipper yanks back the throttle and accelerates to high-velocity speeds. Gasp as your skipper performs break-neck turns and wave jumps, and then catch your breath during a brief interlude at Canary Wharf. Enjoy a leisurely cruise back to the boat’s original departure point

Departure hourly 10:00 – 12:00 then 15:00 and 17:00
Running time 50 mins

Tickets from $53

Stage. The Wipers Times tells the true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme.

In a bombed out building during the First World War in the French town of Ypres (mis-pronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a sombre journal about life in the trenches, they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the front line. Defying enemy bombardment, gas attacks and the disapproval of many of the Top Brass, The Wipers Times rolled off the press for two years and was an extraordinary tribute to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Age 12+
Performance 19:30
Tickets from £18.35

6-7 Great Newport Street
London WC2H7JB
020 7836 8463

Exhibition. The iconic work of British photographer Roger Mayne (1929-2014).

This major exhibition is the first since 1999 to show the iconic work of British photographer Roger Mayne (1929-2014).

It includes his pioneering photographs of 1950s and early 1960s community life in London’s Southam Street. Mayne’s humanistic approach has influenced subsequent generations of photographers, and made a significant contribution to post war British photography. Also featured are examples of Mayne’s less well known work from outside the Capital,

Doors Mon-Sat 10:00 – 18:00 | Thu 10:00 – 20:00 | Sun 11.30 – 18:00

16-18 Ramillies St
London
W1F 7LW

Exhibition. The story of electricity is the story of life itself. Within every object on earth is hidden either a positive or negative electric charge.

Three celebrated artists have been commissioned to create three new artworks for this exhibition: John Gerrard has taken inspiration for his commission from Luigi Galvani’s famous experiments into bioelectricity; Bill Morrison explores historical footage from the Electricity Council archive to consider the movement and networks of electricity and its profound interconnectedness with our daily lives; and Camille Henrot considers our energy-dependent lifestyles, as well as the relationship between humans, technology and the environment.

Tue – Sat 10:00 – 18:00 | Thur 10:00 – 22:00 | Sun 11:00 – 18:00 | Mon Closed

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
020 7611 2222
info@wellcomecollection.org

Stage Play. A musical loosely based on Diana Ross and The Supremes.

Inspired by R&B music acts in 1960s America and loosely based on Diana Ross and The Supremes, Dreamgirls transports you to a revolutionary time in American music history. Dreamgirls charts the tumultuous journey of a young female singing trio from Chicago, Illinois called ‘The Dreams.’ They learn the hard lesson that show business is as tough as it is fabulous.

Performances:19:50
Matinee:14:30

Tickets from £15 plus £3 booking fee

Savoy Theatre
Savoy Court
Strand WC2R 0ET

An exhibition of photographs, and a symposium (20 March) exploring children at play around the world.

The exhibition presents a series of Neville’s photographs of children at play in diverse environments around the world. Immersing himself in communities from Port Glasgow to North London, and in the war zones of Afghanistan and Ukraine, the artist has captured beautiful moments of free, spontaneous play.

Mark Neville is renowned for his socially focused projects. The aim here is to generate debate on the complex nature of children’s play and to advocate for improved provision for this universal right.

Armed conflict has internally displaced 13 million children, and traditional public space is being privatised. So this is a timely exhibition. Child’s Play reinforces our responsibility to ensure that children the world over have full opportunity for play and recreation.

Admission Tue-Sat 10:00 – 17:00 | Sun 11:00 – 17:00 | Mon closed

Foundling Museum
40 Brunswick Square
London
WC1N 1AZ
020 7841 3600

Exhibition. It’s not what you see; it’s how you see it.

Organised around four themes – ‘Ordering,’ ‘Displaying,’ ‘Observing’ and ‘Making’ – this exhibition questions the approach of ‘learning through looking.’

A major exhibition that examines what we think, feel, and value about other species and the consequences this has for the world around us. It brings together over 100 fascinating objects from literature, film, taxidermy and photography to reveal the hierarchies in our view of the natural world and consider how these influence our actions, or inactions, towards the planet.

Admission Tues – Sat 10:00 – 18:00/Thurs 22:00 | Sunday 11:00 – 18:00

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK.
tel: +44 (0)20 7611 2222
info@wellcomecollection.org

The annual free exhibition of stunning space photography

Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year is the biggest international competition of its kind, annually showcasing spectacular images shot by astrophotographers worldwide.

For a taste of past exhibits and a preview of this year’s contestants click on the link

Opening hours: Daily 10am-5pm (last admission 4.30pm)
ENTRY FREE

Blackheath Avenue
London
SE10 8XJ

Exhibition. Robots reveal’s the astonishing 500-year quest to make machines human.

Exhibits from the dawn of mechanised human forms to cutting-edge technology fresh from the lab. Focusing on why they exist rather than on how they work, this blockbuster exhibition explores the ways robots mirror humanity and the insights they offer into our ambitions, desires, and position in a rapidly changing world.

An incredible journey spanning five centuries, illustrated with robotic artifacts from around the globe. From a 16th century mechanised monk to some of film’s most iconic robotic creations and the very latest humanoids, Robots will make you look at yourself and society in a whole new way.

Entry 10:00 – 18:00
Tickets adults £15 | kids £13 Under 7’s free
Museum Lates: Adults Only from £ £7:50 | £6:50 concs | £7:00 seniors. Last Wednesday of each month until August

Science Museum
Exhibition Road
South Kensington
London, SW7 2DD

Exhibition. 100 exceptional images, revealing the astonishing diversity of life on our planet.

From intimate portraits to dramatic landscapes, see how photographers’ passion for the natural world produces startling images.

Admission 10:00 -17:50
Tickets Adults from £10.50 | Child & concs from £6.50 | Family from £27.00

The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
SW7 5BD