The Science Museum has announced a new partnership with Serendipity Arts, with Innovation Lates at the museum opening the free cross-institution Great Exhibition Road Festival. The festival will launch on Friday 5 June with Innovation Lates at the Science Museum, a special Lates celebrating creativity, innovation and exchange. Serendipity Arts is a not-for-profit foundation which nurtures artistic practice, research, and cross-cultural dialogue across South Asia and internationally. The organisation supports emerging and established artists working across disciplines.
This summer’s Great Exhibition Road Festival marks 175 years since the Great Exhibition of 1851, the profits of which helped establish the museums, colleges and cultural institutions of South Kensington. The weekend is packed full of hands-on workshops, including the Science Museum’s Mission to Space and Rocket Mice sessions, fascinating talks and compelling performances. It will feature a special live performance presented by Serendipity Arts, Giants on the Move: A Puppet Street Parade, directed by puppeteer Dadi Pudumjee, which will wind its way among the crowds on Exhibition Road.
Shefali Munjal, Co-Founder Patron at Serendipity Arts said, ‘At Serendipity Arts, we view the arts as a way to activate spaces and invite meaningful dialogue between people. Our collaboration with the Science Museum and the Great Exhibition Road Festival allows us to extend this vision into a global public context, where the museum becomes an instrument of experience and the street a site of collective encounter. It reflects our commitment to fostering connections across cultures, disciplines, and communities through shared artistic expression. Through such collaborations, we continue to build meaningful cultural bridges across geographies, bringing together art, science, and innovation in ways that resonate with diverse audiences.’
Peter Dickinson, Director of Audiences at the Science Museum Group said, ‘The Great Exhibition drew creators, scientists, inventors and millions of visitors to South Kensington, and 175 years on, that instinct to look outward and celebrate innovation and creativity together is still what drives us. Join us as we showcase this throughout a weekend packed full of free fun for everyone, in partnership with Serendipity Arts and the Great Exhibition Road Festival.’
Smriti Rajgarhia, Director at Serendipity Arts said ‘Through our collaboration with the Science Museum, and our participation in Innovation Lates and the Great Exhibition Road Festival, we are exploring how artistic experiences can move across formats and spaces, from immersive works within the museum to large-scale public interventions on the street. Through projects such as Eyes Shall Deceive (नैनन की ठगी) and Giants on the Move, we hope to show how art can move fluidly between settings, shifting from the intimacy of the museum to the openness of the street. In doing so, these works create participatory, layered, and accessible moments that invite audiences to engage with contemporary artistic practices in new and unexpected ways.’
