What’s on in London this week: 13 - 20 April 2026
Discover our pick of events in London this week: 13 - 20 April 2026.
Open City Documentary Festival
Opening this week across various venues in London, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Open City Documentary Festival (15–19 April) returns with a programme celebrating experimental and expansive approaches to non-fiction cinema. Highlights include a focus on Artavazd Pelechian’s innovative “distance montage” films, a retrospective of avant-garde duo Ken and Flo Jacobs, and curated strands like Sensual Laboratories and In Focus: Onyeka Igwe, alongside new screenings, talks and discussions exploring the boundaries of documentary filmmaking.
Date: 15–19 April 2026. Location: Various venues across London (including Barbican, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Rich Mix and BFI Southbank). Price: From £12. concessions available. Book now
Image courtesy of Open City Documentary Festival
Record Store Day
Record Store Day comes to Hidden Grooves in Shoreditch for an all-day celebration of vinyl culture, bringing together DJs, collectors, selectors and record lovers for a mix of music, digging and food. The event features a curated record fair with vendors including Alfie Panaiotis (Heavenly Sweetness / Rook Records) and The Nightlark (Paradise Palms Records), alongside DJ sets from Jamie Reynolds. In collaboration with The Dusty Knuckle bakery, there will also be a special sandwich pop-up where each purchase comes with a surprise vinyl giveaway while stocks last, blending music discovery with East London food culture in a playful, social setting.
Date: 18 April 2026. Location: Hidden Grooves, 45 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3PT. virginhotels.com
Image courtesy of Hidden Groves
Multitudes
The Southbank Centre’s festival Multitudes returns from 16–30 April 2026, offering a fusion of orchestral music with fashion, dance, film, circus, and visual art. This years festival will include a live orchestral reinterpretation of music from Lee Alexander McQueen’s iconic runway shows by the London Contemporary Orchestra, featuring choreography by Michael Clark and Holly Blakey; a collaboration between the Philharmonia Orchestraand Finnish rock band Lordi, blending heavy metal with orchestral ; a semi-staged production of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with filmed and staged elements by Ilya Shagalov; and Circa’s extraordinary floor-based circus performances set to Bach’s The Art of Fugue, accompanied by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
Date: 16 - 30 April 2026. Location: The Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX. Click here for the full programme of events.
Spring Plant Fair 2026
The Spring Plant Fair 2026 returns on 19 April at the Garden Museum, celebrating over 40 years as London’s premier specialist plant event. Bringing together expert growers and renowned nurseries from across the UK, the fair offers a wide selection of garden plants for every space, from window boxes and balconies to allotments and full gardens. Visitors can meet the growers, explore unique plants, and enjoy a programme of talks and activities curated by Susanna Grant and Ollie Whitehead, featuring experts such as Fiona Packe and Flo Dill. The Fair includes stalls from Beth Chatto Gardens, Great Dixter Nursery, Zophian Plants, Heckfield Home Farm, Niwaki, and many more.
Date: 19 April 2026. Time: 10am - 4pm. Location: Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB. Price: from £5. Book now
V&A East Museum London. Image credit Peter Kelleher Victoria & Albert Museum, London
V&A East Museum
This week will see the much-anticipated opening of the V&A East Museum in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The new cultural space features free galleries exploring identity, wellbeing, and social justice through 500+ objects, including historic artefacts, new commissions, and a Thomas J Price sculpture. Its opening exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story, celebrates Black British music.
Date: opening from 18 April 2026. Location: V&A East Museum. East Bank, 107 Carpenters Rd, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, E20 2AR. vam.ac.uk
Los Thuthanaka at Café Oto
Los Thuthanaka bring a highly anticipated two-day residency to Café Oto this week, presenting a rare opportunity to experience the project’s expansive and distinctive sound in an intimate live setting. Founded by west coast artists Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, the group draws together Andean rhythms, Aymara musical traditions and psychedelic rock into a vivid sonic language that bridges past, present and future. Across two nights, the residency features a live performance and film screening on the first evening, followed by a second night of live collaboration, offering an intense and immersive exploration of experimental Indigenous futurism and guitar-led sound worlds. Both nights are already sold out, reflecting the strong demand for a project widely regarded as one of the most compelling contemporary live acts.
Date: 14 – 15 April 2026. Location: Café Oto, 18–22 Ashwin St, London E8 3DL. cafeoto.co.uk
Los Thuthanaka, Café Oto
London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Antonio Pappano
The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, performs Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in the Hall. Elgar’s oratorio sets Cardinal Newman’s poem tracing a soul’s journey from death to judgment, moving through states of anguish, revelation and transcendence in richly orchestrated, emotionally charged music. Widely regarded as one of Elgar’s greatest achievements, it unfolds on a Wagnerian scale, from the deeply expressive Prelude to the serene final “Angel’s Farewell,” and features the London Symphony Chorus alongside world-class soloists.
Date: 19 – 21 April 2026. Location: Hall, Barbican Centre, Silk St, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: £18-£72. Concessions available. Book now
RULES at Village Underground
RULES will take over Village Underground in Shoreditch on Saturday 18 April for a night focused on stripped-back, raw electronic music. The British producer and multi-instrumentalist is known for blending classic house energy with deep, driving soul, bringing his distinctive sound to one of London’s iconic dance floors. Presented by Broadwick Live, the 18+ event will require valid ID for entry.
Date: 18 April 2026. Location: Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3PQ. villageunderground.co.uk
Cinema
In Focus: Onyeka Igwe 3 + Q&A
London-based moving image artist and researcher Onyeka Igwe presents a focused programme at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, as part of Open City Documentary Festival 2026. The programme brings together works made between 2015 and 2025, alongside artist films for British television and a participatory workshop. Drawing on archival fragments, performance and sound, Igwe’s practice explores diaspora, cultural memory and anti-colonial resistance. The selection moves from reflections on Nigerian diasporic female identity to reworkings of the 1929 Aba Women’s War, as well as pieces engaging with independence-era oratory and West African ritual practices of reconciliation. It concludes with an imagined account of anti-colonial collaboration in post-war London, followed by a Q&A with the artist.
Date: 18 April 2026. Location: Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA London), The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: £14. Concessions available. Book now
The Stranger, dir. François Ozon, France/Belgium 2025, 123 mins, French with English subtitles, 15
The Stranger
The Stranger (2025), directed by François Ozon, is a black-and-white adaptation of Albert Camus’s existential novel that reinterprets its themes for a modern audience. Set in 1938 Algiers, the film follows Meursault, an emotionally detached man who shows no grief at his mother’s funeral and drifts through life without clear purpose. He resumes a casual relationship with Marie and becomes entangled in the troubling affairs of his neighbour Raymond, allowing events to guide his actions rather than making deliberate choices. This indifference ultimately leads to a tragic act of violence, revealing Meursault’s unwavering philosophical outlook. While staying true to the novel’s core ideas, the film also highlights the contradictions and moral tensions of French colonial society.
Date: 11 - 16 April 2026. Location: Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA London), The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH. Price: £14. Concessions available. Book now
Arts & Culture
Opening this week
The Music is Black: A British Story
V&A East opens its new museum with the inaugural exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story, exploring the influence of Black artistry on British music and culture over the past 125 years. It traces musical traditions rooted in Africa and shaped by histories of enslavement, colonialism, migration, and innovation. The exhibition features more than 200 objects, including instruments, fashion, photographs, and personal items from artists such as Dame Shirley Bassey, Little Simz, Seal, Skin, Mis-Teeq, and Skepta. Curated by Jacqueline Springer, it also launches The Music Is Black Festival in partnership with BBC Music and East Bank cultural organisations. Click here to discover more.
Date: 18 April 2026 – 3 January 2027. Location: V&A East Museum, 107 Carpenters Rd, Stratford Cross, London, E20 2AR. Price: Weekday £22.50 / Weekend £24.50. Concessions available. Book now
Harry Hammond, Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing at Drury Lane Theatre, 1959 © Photo by Harry Hammond.
1996: 30 years on - The wildest year of Britain’s wildest decade
Launching at the Barbican Music Library this week, 1996: 30 years on is a free exhibition marking three decades since the height of Cool Britannia, revisiting the cultural explosion of mid-1990s Britain through music, fashion, football and media. Curated by Dominic Mohan, it brings together original Spice Girls costumes, previously unseen Oasis memorabilia, photography by Jill Furmanovsky and Derek Ridgers, and personal items from leading DJs and producers including Paul Oakenfold, Dave Pearce and Judge Jules, reflecting a moment when London sat at the centre of global pop culture and creative energy.
Date: 16 April – 19 September 2026. Location: Barbican Music Library, Barbican Centre, Silk St, London EC2Y 8DS. Price: Free. barbican.org.uk
Gabriel Abrantes: Bardo Loops
Gasworks presents Bardo Loops, the first UK solo exhibition by artist and filmmaker Gabriel Abrantes. The installation is presented across four screens, featuring animated ghosts who argue, reconcile, and sing laments, blending autobiographical fragments with wider themes such as climate change and anxieties around a digitally dominated future. Each two-minute loop shows the spectres trapped in endless arguments, often against catastrophic backdrops like wildfires or hurricane-ravaged coastlines, reflecting contemporary concerns about loss, health, and the overwhelming effects of social media and AI. Through deceptively simple ghost forms, Abrantes invites viewers into a darkly humorous yet poignant reflection on human vulnerability.
Date: 16 April - 14 June 2026. Location: Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street, London SE11 5RH. Price:Free. Book now
© Jill Furmanovsky
Saelia Aparicio: A Joyful Parasite
A major solo exhibition by London-based Spanish artist Saelia Aparicio will open at Southwark Park Galleries, presenting A Joyful Parasite, a large scale installation combining sculpture, large-scale mural drawings, and narrative elements to explore the complex entanglements between bodies, environments, and systems of care. The exhibition incorporates conceptual, science fiction, and ecological themes, with works specially reconfigured for the distinctive architecture of the deconsecrated Grade II Listed Dilston Gallery.
Date: 18 April – 5 June 2026. Location: Southwark Park Galleries, Southwark Park, London SE16 2UA. Price: Free. southwarkparkgalleries.org
Ambie Drew: Soft Bodies, Cold Machines
arebyte presents Soft Bodies, Cold Machines, a solo exhibition by Ambie Drew that transforms the gallery into a teenage bedroom reimagined through internet culture, AI imagery and social media influence. The work explores growing up online, focusing on identity, digital personas and how the human experience is reshaped by algorithm-driven systems. What begins with playful, familiar aesthetics gradually shifts into a more unsettling reflection on online life and constant digital consumption. Through installation, film and interactive pieces, the “girl-bedroom” becomes a hybrid space where memory, consumption and technology collide, while also hinting at moments of resistance within digital systems.
Date: 17 April – 2 August 2026. Location: arebyte, London, arebyte Digital Art Centre, 25-27 Camden Rd, London, NW1 9LN. Price: Free. arebyte.com
Image courtesy of arebyte
Nhu Xuan Hua: Of Walking on Fire
Autograph in London will host the first solo exhibition of French-Vietnamese artist Nhu Xuan Hua, curated by Bindi Vora. Spanning both gallery spaces, the exhibition will feature newly commissioned works that explore memory, family history, and the ways stories are communicated, or withheld, across generations. Hua reimagines archival photographs from her family’s time in Vietnam and early years in Europe, creating dreamlike, digitally-altered compositions that blur recognition and distortion. Drawing on her own experience growing up in Paris with immigrant parents and navigating linguistic and cultural silences, her work reflects the fragility of memory and the complexities of diasporic identity.
Date: 16 April – 19 September 2026. Location: Autograph, Rivington Place, London EC2A 3BA. Price: Free. autograph.org.uk
Nhu Xuan Hua, The one who couldn’t talk, 2021. Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Anne-Laure Buffard, France.
Racheal Crowther
London-based artist Racheal Crowther presents her first institutional solo exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery, examining systems of governance, surveillance, and institutional power and how they intersect with structures of care. Her practice repurposes technical equipment and industrial objects that carry traces of memory, revealing the failures of bureaucracy and the ways institutional structures shape everyday life. For this exhibition, Crowther investigates the politics of scent as a tool of influence and social control, considering how sensory manipulation operates across different contexts, from commercial environments designed to shape behaviour to its use within military and policing systems.
Date: 17 April – 14 June 2026. Location: Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Road, London, E3 5QZ. Price: Free. chisenhale.org.uk
Racheal Crowther, production image, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London in partnership with Temple Bar Gallery Studios, Dublin, and Bétonsalon, Paris. Photo: Harry Mitchell. Courtesy of the artist.
#FLOFavourites: Pick of the Week
Park of the week
Victoria Park
Victoria Park. Image credit MTotoe/ FLO London
Victoria Park in East London (Tower Hamlets) is a great place to spend a slow summer’s afternoon, whether you’re relaxing on the grass, walking by the canals, or catching up with friends outdoors. Inside the park, Pavilion Café is a popular stop for coffee, pastries and light bites which over looks the lake, while nearby spots like Deeney’s and cafés along Lauriston Road offer easy options for brunch or something quick to eat. It’s an ideal place to unwind and take your time in the sunshine.
Location: Grove Road, Bow, London, E3 5TB.
Art news of the week
ICA Film Programme for May
anyone can dance w/ Eastern Margins. Image credit Jenny Arrowsmith
In May, the ICA London presents a film programme featuring retrospectives, premieres and festivals. Highlights include Long Takes: Nothing But Life – The Cinema of Rita Azevedo Gomes (2 May–5 June), the first major UK retrospective of the Portuguese filmmaker, alongside new releases in the Off-Circuit strand such as the UK premiere of Phantoms of July (1 May) and Tycoon (22 May) with a Q&A. The month also sees the return of Queer East Festival (2–17 May), showcasing LGBTQ+ cinema from East and Southeast Asia, and In Focus: Niki de Saint Phalle (8–10 May), featuring restored films by the artist, bringing together contemporary and historical approaches to experimental cinema.
Click here for more art news to be on your radar this week.
Food of the week
Sova
Image courtesy of Maki & Ramen Soho
Sova, a new wine and vinyl bar, has opened in Notting Hill, moments from Portobello Road, in the former ZIMA site. It focuses on low-intervention and skin-contact wines from Eastern and Central Europe, including Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, alongside pét-nats, orange wines, structured whites and chilled reds. Slavic-inspired small plates are created by Moldovan chef Denis Calmis. Vinyl records and guest DJs set the tone, creating great vibes ideal for an evening of music and dining.
Location: 9 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London W11 2EE. Website: sova.london. Instagram: @sova.london
Cause of the week
It Gets Better UK
Unfold
It Gets Better UK is a charity focused on supporting and empowering LGBTQ+ young people through storytelling and community involvement. It offers a range of ways to get involved, including sharing personal experiences, creating content, and contributing to social media to help inspire and uplift others. Volunteers can also support the organisation by taking part in Pride events or becoming Regional Ambassadors, helping to spread its message within local communities. Through these opportunities, It Gets Better UK aims to ensure LGBTQ+ youth feel seen, heard and valued, reinforcing the message that no matter the challenges they face, it really does get better.
Click here to discover more about volunteering with It Gets Better UK.
