Part II. The exhibition explores the various everyday experiences of life in London over the centuries, as presented to us through architecture, art and literature. It features rare items from UCL's art and book collections, including selections from Hogarth's series Industry and Idleness.
UCL is delighted to present One Day in the City, an exhibition juxtaposing numerous
representations of life in London: past, present, and future. Two exhibition spaces run
concurrently – UCL Art Museum and the South Cloisters – each in their own way reflecting the
layered simultaneity and historicity of city life. Populated with caricatures, paintings, sketches,
books, photographs, and digital media, these spaces feature rare items from UCL’s art and book
collections, such as selections from Hogarth’s series Industry and Idleness (1747), alongside
images streamed ‘real-time’ from the London streets.
A key objective of One Day in the City is to present specialist research material from a range of
disciplines, and to do so in vibrant, accessible, and sustainable ways which are suitable to a broad
audience. Consequently, the exhibitions juxtapose and interconnect current research from The
Bartlett School of Architecture, Birkbeck College, Central Saint Martins, the Slade School of Fine
Art, UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, UCL
Department of English and UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). This
research is displayed alongside and in conversation with a unique selection of holdings from UCL
Art Museum and UCL Special Collections.
One Day in the City is co-curated by Nick Shepley (UCL English) and Andrea Fredericksen (UCL Art
Museum), in partnership with the Bartlett School of Architecture, and is generously supported by
UCL Grand Challenges: Sustainable Cities. Chee-Kit Lai and Max Dewdney (Mobile Studios) are the
creative minds behind the exhibition design for South Cloisters.
UCL Art Museum holds over 10,000 prints, drawings, sculptures, paintings and media works
dating from the 1490s to the present day. Highlights include sculpture and drawings by
neoclassical artist John Flaxman, the Grote Collection of 16th-century Northern European
drawings, the Vaughan Collection of old master prints, and the acclaimed Slade Collection of
award-winning student works. Selections from the painting and sculpture collections are also on
permanent display across UCL. The museum specialises in object-based learning and collaborates
on exhibitions, interdisciplinary research and public engagement projects with fellow scholars at
UCL and with external partners. Classes across the disciplines at UCL and other universities
regularly use the collections.
For information about the South Cloisters exhibition visit
www.ucl.ac.uk/onedayinthecity/exhibitions or contact Nick Shepley at n.shepley@ucl.ac.uk
UCL Library's Special Collections form one of the UK's foremost university collections of
manuscripts, archives and rare books. Around half a million items - over 7,000 linear metres of
material - range from medieval manuscripts and incunabula to personal papers of leading
twentieth-century figures. Particular strengths include texts of Dante, Castiglione and Euclid,
collections on the history of science and language, outstanding Jewish and Latin American
material, and the George Orwell Archive. The UCL Special Collections team is committed to
promoting these cultural treasures for teaching, research, and enjoyment more widely,
collaborating regularly both within UCL and with external partners. More information can be
found at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-coll/.
Part I (UCL Art Museum & South Cloisters): 15th June – 22nd August 2012
Part II (UCL Art Museum): 24th September – 14th December 2012
UCL Art Museum
South Cloisters, Wilkins Building
University College London
Gower Street - London WC1E 6BT
Mon – Fri 1 -5 pm
Admission is free