Learn English With Immersive Art In London 2025 Ep 810
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Hi there, and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Today, let's have a look at some of the exhibitions which are going on in London this summer. An exhibition, E-X-H-I-B-I-T-I-O-N, is traditionally where artists display their work. But as you will see, there are

are all kinds of exhibitions. And often the purpose of these exhibitions is to give the visitor an experience. It's no longer enough, it seems, to simply go and look at some art. It needs to be an experience. And

and the English phrase which describes what many exhibitions are trying to achieve, the immersive experience. More about what that means in a minute. This podcast is for interest, but as ever, we'll give you some new and interesting vocabulary to learn.

as you do your English language practice. And if you're actually visiting London, why not go and see one of the exhibitions I'm talking about? We'd love to hear all about it if you do. Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.

But this podcast is more than this. It's also a reflection of what people are visiting and going to see in London in 2025. There are traditional exhibitions, of course, but also some that are really very different, as you'll hear.

So last September, I visited a David Hockney exhibition in London with my daughter and her boyfriend. Nothing unusual in that, you might say. David Hockney is a well-known British artist who I've mentioned before. He's now in his 90s and in slightly failing health, but is still painting and

and still exhibiting. You may know his work, but the exhibition we went to see last September was different. It didn't contain any physical David Hockney paintings. Instead, Hockney's paintings had been animated.

A-N-I-M-A-T-E-D. That means brought to life, made to move. And his paintings were not only animated, but being projected onto walls, ceilings,

and floor. If you project something, it means you shine a light onto a flat surface, and often that light shows a picture. So that's the verb to project, P-R-O-J-E-C-T. And this Hockney exhibition was in a place in London called The Light Room, which has a huge space, huge white walls. So with the animated projection of Hockney's art,

shone onto the ceiling, the walls and the floor of this huge space, he aims to give the visitor that immersive experience. I think the same exhibition is on again later this year, if you're interested in seeing that. And this immersive experience seems to be something of a trend. Immersive, I-M-M-E-R-S-I-V-E,

This is also the word we use about the ideal language learning environment. If you immerse yourself in something, it's as though you've jumped into a river or a swimming pool and the water's over your head. You're fully immersed.

You're entirely in that environment. So if you went to a foreign country, you'd have an immersive experience of the language being spoken around you. Of course, that's what we aim to do with the Adept English podcast, give you something of an immersive English experience. But here, these exhibitions are aiming at

targeting the visitor's senses to give them an experience. I'm sure this trend for immersive experiences is happening in other countries too. Do let us know. There are, of course, the more traditional exhibitions going on in London this summer. For example, at London's V&A or Victoria and Albert Museum, which specialises in displaying beautiful objects,

There is a Cartier jewellery exhibition. And at the National Portrait Gallery, there is an exhibition of Edvard Munch's paintings, a portraiture

A portrait, P-O-R-T-R-A-I-T, is a painting of a person, often a well-known person. Edvard Munch is a well-known Norwegian painter, best known perhaps for his painting The Scream, which you may know. That's Scream if you want the original Norwegian. And amongst the more usual types of

art, two exhibitions which are a bit different. The first is our own Grayson Perry, the transvestite potter who is very well known and loved in the UK. A potter, P-O-T-T-E-R, just means someone who makes pots. Grayson Perry has a wonderful, irreverent humour. I'd say enjoyable satire even. He makes you laugh, in other words.

And there is an exhibition of Grayson Perry's latest works called Delusions of Grandeur. That's at the Wallace Collection in London. So the show is all Grayson Perry's works and comprises pottery, tapestry, furniture and collage. Collage, C-O-L-L-A-G-E, in art, is where you make an image using lots of

pieces of paper with different colours and textures. So that's what's on at the Wallace Collection. The other Something Different exhibition is R. Peter Singh at the Serpentine Galleries. And this exhibition is called Remembering.

Arpita Singh is an acclaimed Indian artist who has been making art for the last 60 years. Apparently, she started with surrealist oil paintings and moved later to abstract watercolour paintings and black and white drawings.

reflecting, and this is a quote from the information, reflecting political turmoil or local conflicts in India. R. Peter Singh also focuses on, and I quote, illustrating the female experience in both public and private spheres. So there's plenty of two-dimensional art, but still very different from

art exhibitions in London this summer. Where I say traditional or two-dimensional 2D art, I mean art that's on a canvas and hangs on a wall. But what about more of these exhibitions which aim to give an immersive experience to visitors? Well, on until May at the Design Museum London is the World of Tim Burton. This series of rooms with installations, that means made up objects, mirrors and light,

all aim to give the visitor a certain experience. If you'd like to see this one, you need to move quickly because it finishes at the end of May. Tim Burton is famous for his movies, his films.

and, says the blurb, that's B-L-U-R-B, that means the write-up for the exhibition, is recognised as the master of the comically grotesque and endearingly misfit. Some great words there.

His early films included Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, if you know those. So if you'd like a rather weird experience, The World of Tim Burton may be a good exhibition to visit. Another exhibition, Soil.

The World at Our Feet. That's on at Somerset House in London. And yes, you heard right. Soil. S-O-I-L. That's the dirt, the black stuff, which most of the ground is made up of. Soil is what we garden in. And in recent years, there's been a lot of attention on soil and its great importance to our world and our ability to grow things.

something we take for granted, of course. And in particular, there is great enthusiasm for the world of mushrooms, or rather the mycelium, which populate underground. Mycelium, M-Y-C-E-L-I-U-M, they're the part of the fungus which grows underground.

which you don't see. You only see the fruit, the actual mushrooms at certain times of year. So this is a whole exhibition about soil and under the ground. I would imagine that one is both surprising and interesting to visit. So that's at Somerset House in London. And then we come to the Saatchi Gallery and their exhibition Flowers, Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture.

Again, it's a sort of immersive experience. The blurb?

The write-up says, two floors and nine gallery spaces transformed into floral wonderlands. It involves a 50 square metre mural, that's M-U-R-A-L, meaning a wall painting, and rooms where there are hanging flowers which tickle your face as you walk underneath. I haven't been to this one yet and part of me prefers to go see flowers growing in the ground in a garden.

but maybe I'll make that one. I am interested in flowers in art. Lightroom, which was the venue for the David Hockney exhibition I mentioned earlier, currently have an exhibition called Vogue.

Inventing the Runway, which is, of course, another exhibition involving huge projections. Lightroom is essentially a building which is like a huge white box inside. So pretty much all of its exhibitions are projected.

Projected art or projected images of some kind. A runway, apart from being what airplanes used to take off, it's also the name of the walkway which models use at shows. The other name in English for the runway is the catwalk. Again, in its own description, inventing the runway utilises the world's most iconic

Fashion Magazine's archives to create an incredible immersive experience. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Ebbgliss.

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It features big designers, more than 60 of them, like Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. So if you like fashion and enjoy your clothing labels and you're into these designers and their history, that's another immersive experience that you may be interested in. If you like more traditional artwork, but again, like Lightroom, projected onto walls or animated, you can visit Marble Archive.

in London for an exhibition called Frameless. That's F-R-A-M-E-L-E-S-S, without a frame, in other words. Here, the venue at Marble Arch is 30,000 square feet with a series of rooms, which again have artworks projected onto the walls, ceilings and floors.

This is the immersive bit again. And here the projected artwork belongs to Van Gogh, Monet and Rembrandt. I can't help but think these types of exhibition must be a real moneymaker for these gallery spaces once they're set up, especially at £25 per ticket. I wonder what Van Gogh, Monet or Rembrandt

would have thought of these exhibitions. This show includes 40 interactive digital interpretations of masterpieces. Another good one to visit, and I'm completely up for this one, the Paradox Museum in Knightsbridge in London. Here it looks a bit like an Alice in Wonderland experience. There are 25 rooms of mind-bending trick spaces, mazes,

kaleidoscopes and all sorts of illusions. An illusion, I-L-L-U-S-I-O-N, is a vision of something that's not real. That's an illusion. And the example photograph

Used to illustrate for this exhibition, it shows a tube station platform, except it's all upside down. People are sitting or standing on the ceiling. I would like to go to that one. It reminds me of a permanent exhibition space in Edinburgh called Camera Obscura. I don't know anyone else who's been to this, but it was absolutely fantastic.

At Camera Obscura, there are five floors of illusions and experiences. It's a bit like a psychedelic trip, but without the drugs. The Paradox Museum is £29 per ticket, so quite pricey again, but well worth a visit. And if you're ever in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, especially if it's a rainy day,

Camera Obscura is a wonderful way to spend it. Last one, and this is surely for the inner child in all of us, Bubble Planet in Wembley, London. Apparently, this exhibition has been in Milan, Brussels and Los Angeles previously.

and now Wembley. The blurb for this one says, escape to a whimsical world of bubbles that engages the senses across 11 themed rooms. Witness a futuristic robot-led bubble show. Dip into an ocean full of living balloons and get carried away by myriad magical illusions. Be

before making it out to the other side. Well, that sounds fun for an afternoon, doesn't it? And yet another immersive experience. Let us know what you think and especially if you visit any of these. And I'll be sure to give you a report if I go to any of these exhibitions. And let us know whether exhibitions in your country also insist on being immersive experiences.

I'd be interested to know. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.