Public Open day: Light

Public Events

Join us for an extravaganza of materials and making around the theme of light. Make your very own electrical circuit to power an LED with Codasign, discover how reflective materials do their thing, and explore the magic of invisibility. Have a go at photography without a camera with light artist Angela Easterling, using only light sensitive paper and the sun. Watch yellow road markings being painted and test how they reflect and catch our eyes and deconstruct a range of cat’s eyes.

In our wondrous Materials Library discover phosphorescent living organisms and see how, under UV light, tonic water fluoresces, sun cream turns black and diamonds glow.
Discover ongoing research project Light.Touch.Matters, which brings together designers and materials scientists from all over Europe to develop a new generation of flexible materials that respond to touch with light. Get hands-on with some early samples.

The street outside the Institute of Making will be coming alive with a range of activities from UCL researchers. Participate in an attempt to set a new world record by creating the world’s largest cyanotype print and discover how light became the power behind the internet. Explore a 21st-century cabinet of curiosities from UCL Museums, step inside a camera obscura and visit the bicycle trailer photography darkroom. Refreshments will be available to buy, and Psychedelic folk band Circulus will be helping the party go with a swing.
Click here for further info

There will be activities happening at the Wellcome Collection over the entire weekend from late Friday leading into the bank holiday weekend.
7pm - 11pm, Friday 1st May
1pm - 6pm, Saturday 2nd, Sunday 3rd and Monday 4th May
Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.

Join the Welcome Collection to illuminate our human relationship with light with an extended weekend of performance, discussion, activity and art. Artists and academics will come together to explore the significance of light in human life, and we invite you to discover how it feeds, fascinates and inspires us, and reflect on its influence over our health and happiness.
Click here for further activities: On Light