King's Cross, London, has recently been bursting with events, so I decided to check them out. I went last Saturday, first stopping at Euston Square station to visit the Wellcome Collection, then moving onto the King's Cross events: Canopy Market, CSM Degree Show, and Francis Crick Institute exhibition. All these events are free, so perfect for students like me on a bit of a budget!
The Wellcome Collection is a museum that combines medicine and art. I had heard about the Somewhere in Between exhibition from a newspaper, and since I'm studying Dentistry and am generally quite interested in the sciences, I thought I'd make a visit. It was a very interesting exhibition which opened my eyes to a lot of things I'd never thought about before, and I particularly enjoyed the films on mirror-touch synaesthesia called Sensorium Tests and At the Threshold.
After, I discovered two other exhibitions currently on at the Wellcome Collection. Teeth was the one that excited me the most (being a dental student!), and I would have stayed for longer than the hour I had if I could have. Modern Medicine was the other, a smaller exhibition that introduced medicine in recent news and had interesting artistic interpretations of major diseases.
At this point, it was time for lunch and I was starving. I decided to get something from the Canopy Market. Being a big pasta-lover, I was instantly drawn to the Love Farina stall, where an Italian family was selling fresh pasta. I ordered a bowl of spinach tagliatelle (purely because it was green and looked cool) with ragu bolognese. The man, Enrico, made the pasta onsite, right in front of my eyes, and it was delicious.
I also visited the other stalls, where I had a bit of a naughty moment and bought a giant slice of lemon and blueberry cake from Luminary Bakery and three cannoli (Sicilian pastry) from Casa Cannoli. I ate them all in one day, but they were so good I can't even regret it!
Right next to the market was the UAL CSM Degree Show One - an exhibition of fine art produced by the BA and MA students of UAL. It was really...interesting? If I'm honest, I was actually very confused most the time. I like looking at art, but perhaps I miss that certain something that allows me to fully understand it? I went through the rooms appreciating the way things looked and how they were made, and enjoyed myself, even if I didn't get it. There was one area that didn't go completely above my head, the science & art area, surprise surprise. There were works on refraction, magnetic repulsion, and an awesome one where the movement of a film reel was linked to the artist's heartbeat, so every time it beat, the film would pass along with a click.
Unfortunately part one has finished, however, the second part, based on fashion, drama, and graphics, is coming up late June, which I would love to go to but I'll be in Cornwall on holiday. I'm genuinely disappointed that I won't be able to see it, I feel like I would've enjoyed it much more than the first one.
And finally, I ended my visit to King's Cross with a trip to the Francis Crick Institute. As you can tell by now, I'm a science girl, so I wanted to check out the Deconstructing Patterns exhibition there. This was definitely a more difficult exhibition to understand, and not really aimed at those with no scientific background knowledge. I found some of it difficult to understand myself, and due to the time pressure as it was near closing time, I couldn't stay for long enough to properly figure everything out. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this exhibition as much as the others I'd seen that day.
Overall, it was a lovely trip, and I would definitely recommend visiting all these places! The Wellcome Collection was a favourite, as was the food in the Canopy Market. The CSM fashion show looks amazing, so if you're around, don't forget to have a peek!
♥
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