The best exhibitions in London this Spring: From Seurat to Sci-Fi
A stacked spring of culture
Spring is in the air. Seriously. You’d be able to see it if it weren’t for all of this rain.
Don’t let this damp late Winter get you down, however. There’s much to look forward to as the days start to get longer, if not necessarily drier.
Even if the weather doesn’t take a turn for the better, there are a whole bunch of exciting exhibitions coming up for you to visit. They’ll require a trip into England’s fair capital city if you don’t already live there, but trust us when we say it’ll be worth it.
Whether you’re thinking high brow or low brow, arty or pure pop culture indulgence, and regardless of whether you’re travelling solo or have the full family in tow, London has an exhibition to fully immerse yourself in this spring.
Just remember to bring an umbrella.
Seurat and the Sea
- Where: Courtauld Institute
- When: Until the 17th of May
- Price: From £18
You might not have heard of Georges Seurat – the French painter produced fewer than 50 works before his untimely death at the tender age of 31 – but you may well have heard of the technique he pioneered alongside Paul Signac in the late 19th century.
Pointillism is the practice of constructing paintings using lots of small dabs and dots, essentially tricking the mind into putting the final image together.
This exhibition at the Courtauld Institute – which holds the largest number of Seurat paintings in the UK – focuses on the painter’s stunning seascapes, which made up more than half his work.
Wes Anderson: The Archives
- Where: The Design Museum
- When: Until the 26th of July
- Price: From £46
Underway right now at the Design Museum right through to mid July, this charming exhibition is the first to delve so deeply into the famously fastidious director’s personal archive.
As you’d expect, it’s a fascinatingly detailed and expertly curated hoard, made up of some 700 objects covering some three decades of Anderson’s idiosyncratic work. You’ll be able to track the obsessively constructed sets and clockwork productions of films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Isle of Dogs. There’s also a screening of Anderson’s little-seen debut short, Bottle Rocket. We've been lucky enough to attend, so if you want a taste of what's on offer, check out our thoughts.
Magical worlds: Fairy Tales
- Where: The British Library
- When: March 27th to August 23rd
- Price: From £11.50
What better place to host a celebration of folkloric fantasy – aka fairy tales – than the hallowed British Library? This family-friendly interactive exhibition will employ books, theatre costumes, puppets, pop-ups, artwork and illustrations to take you on a magical journey through literature. You’ll apparently be able to sit down at the Three Bears' breakfast table (Goldie Locks), tell the genie your wish (Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp), and smell the wicked witch’s potions (take your pick), among other book-based activities.
Power Up
- Where: The Science Museum
- When: Permanent
- Price: From £14
OK, so Power Up isn’t strictly speaking a spring exhibition. It’s been running as a permanent member of the Science Museum’s formidable line-up since mid-2023. But it pays to remind people that it’s there, because for those with an appreciation for the history of the medium, there’s very little to touch it in this or any other city. This ‘interactive gallery’ has assembled 160 game consoles from across five decades, covering many of the greats and plenty of obscure gems in between. You can go hands-on with the exhibits, of course, and the roster is constantly being added to.
Museum of Edible Earth
- Where: Somerset House
- When: March 18th to April 26th
- Price: Pay what you can
And now for something completely different. This spring, the stately Somerset House is playing host to an improbably grubby exhibit. As the name suggests, the Museum of Edible Earth is concerned with the taste and nutritional properties of mineral-rich earths from around the world. You might call it eating dirt – your mother certainly did – but artist and researcher Masharu calls it by the technical term of ‘geophagy’, which is a practice that has ancient tribal roots. If you’ve always fancied chowing down on some chalk without any judgment whatsoever, pop along this spring.
New Game Plus
- Where: Exhibition White City
- When: April 16th to 17th
- Price: From £20
Part of the London Games Festival, New Game Plus is where members of the public get to come to play an officially curated selection of tomorrow’s hottest indie games. The line-up has already been announced, so head over to the LGF website to peruse the list. Or even better, rock up on the day and take a punt. You can expect a huge amount of creativity and originality to be on display, the likes of which you don’t tend to find in many of today’s so-called ‘AAA’ games.
In Other Worlds
- Where: Barbican Centre
- When: May 21st to September 6th
- Price: Free
This coming spring will see London’s beloved Barbican hosting the first UK solo exhibition by Liam Young – an artist, director and BAFTA-nominated producer. As this diverse CV suggests, Young dips his toes into a wide range of media, so you can expect films, costumes, props, movie miniature models, comics, tapestries and soundscapes – all presenting a hopeful vision of the future. It sounds as if Young’s work is going to take the idea of world–building in fiction to another dimension entirely, but this is no mere flight of fancy. Each element is said to be rooted in “real technology and climate-based possibilities”.
MCM London Comic Con 2026
- Where: Excel
- When: May 22nd to 24th
- Price: From £27
Comic fans, cosplayers, fantasy fiends, and sci-fi aficionados will probably want to mosey on over to the ExCel centre this May. London’s charmlessly vast aircraft hanger of a conference centre plays host to another celebration of all things nerd culture.
Expect a bizarrely broad range of anime and gaming voice actors, TV and film actors – the attendance of stars from both Death Note and Beyond Paradise was announced recently. You can also expect access to reams of the very genre media that have broken so loudly into the mainstream in recent decades.
Sci-Fi London 2026
- Where: Rich Mix Shoreditch
- When: May 13th to 17th
- Price: TBA
What better way to see out the spring and welcome another balmy British summer than by sitting in a darkened room for an extended weekend? The 25th edition of Sci-Fi London film festival, which this year returns to the Rich Mix arts centre and cinema in Shoreditch, is a five-day event located smack bang in the middle of spring. This year’s event promises another selection of new and thought-provoking science fiction and genre movies (stay tuned for a full line-up). Besides the features themselves, you can expect appearances from directors and cast members.
Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.