The London Salons

For our salon series, we opened the museum after dark to let Londoners’ voices be heard. Our monthly informal evening events brought together writers, artists, academics and thinkers to discuss the urgent issues facing the city with visitors. We wanted to open up a conversation on what Londoners care about, and invite the city in to take part.

We experimented with live-streaming three of our salons on Facebook, letting thousands more people watch them and taking questions from our online audience to ask our speakers.

We welcomed 530 attendees to our 10 London salons.

We recorded and streamed three London salons on Facebook Live, with 9490 people watching.

Memory Salon — 13 June 2017

Curated by Jes Fernie as part of the London Festival of Architecture 2017.

Speakers:

• Shola Amoo
• Ruby Cowling
• Liza Fior
• Ben Judah

Emotion Salon — 11 July 2017

Curated by Lauren Parker. Megan Nolan created a new piece of writing for the Museum of London as part of this salon, Twelve Selves, available to read online.

Speakers:

• Katherine Angel
• Jay Bernard
• Megan Nolan
• Tiffany Watt-Smith

Playing Out Salon — 8 August 2017

Curated by Lauren Parker. The Playing Out Salon featured: a late opening of Blast Theory’s artwork, My Point Forward, to coincide with the event; Collage Club ran an interactive workshop as part of the event; and Matheson Marcault created a game for the Sackler Hall ellipse. You can play the game, adapted for this website.

Speakers:

• Matt Adams, Blast Theory
• Edwina Attlee
• Holly Gramazio, Matheson Marcault

Try out the game now!

Protest Salon — 12 September 2017

Curated by Lauren Parker.

Speakers:

• Lauren Elkin
• Anna Minton
• Oli Mould
• Sarah Turner
• Alex Vasudevan

Edgelands Salon — 10 October 2017

Curated by Tom Keeley. The evening also featured the launch of the London Urban Herbal drink, created by Company Drinks for the City Now City Future season.

Speakers:

• Ken Worpole (chair)
• Kathrin Bohm, Company Drinks
• John Grindrod
• Verity-Jane Keefe
• Marion Shoard

Cultural Infrastructure Salon — 14 November 2017

Curated by Theatrum Mundi. The evening also featured the launch of their Cultural Infrastructure research report.

Speakers:

• Adam Kaasa (chair)
• Oliver Goodhall and Melissa Meyer, We Made That
• David Hills and Molly Judge, DSDHA
• Giles Smith, Assemble

Aftershocks Salon — 12 December 2017

This Salon was conceived, created and produced by Living Maps Network. After a performance by three speakers, the audience broke into three groups to discuss future scenarios for London, from Revolution in the Streets to the Incredible Shrinking City.

Queer Night Scenes Salon — 13 February 2018

Curated by Ben Campkin and Laura Marshall, UCL Urban Lab. The Salon is accompanied by a special edition of the UCL Urban Lab’s Urban Pamphleteer magazine, commissioned by the Museum of London.

Speakers:

• Dr Sharon Husbands (chair)
• Travis Alabanza
• Friends of the Joiners Arms
• Dan de la Motte
• Planning Out
• Chardine Taylor-Stone

Plus, performance of Fabulous Facades by:

• Ben Campkin
• Laura Marshall
• Zia Forrai
• Gabrielle Basso Ricci
• Sebastian Buser
• Thomas Kendall

Wearable Resistance Salon — 13 March 2018

Conceived and created by Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion.

Speakers:

• Susan Postlethwaite, RCA (chair)
• Gaika
• Alexa Pollmann, Peut-Porter
• Adam Thorpe, Vexed Generation

Plus provocations and interactive performances by:

• Gaika
• Peut-Porter

Countercultures Salon — 10 April 2018

Curated by James Manning and Time Out London, as part of Time Out’s 50th Anniversary in 2018.

Speakers:

• Jamie Brett, Youth Club (chair)
• Laura Brosnan
• Princess Julia
• Paul Richards
• Tony Sleep
• Dave Swindells
• Chardine Taylor-Stone