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The summer holidays are well and truly over, and London’s cultural institutions are very much in ‘back to school’ mode this month, with loads of great exhibition openings across September and new season announcements coming thick and fast. The Tate, the Courtauld and the National Portrait Gallery have already announced their 2026 seasons, and now it’s the turn of celebrated arts institution Somerset House.
Ahead of its 25th birthday celebrations this weekend, the venue has shared details of its 2026-2027 culture programme, including major exhibitions, another big birthday celebration and the return of some of the venue’s best-loved seasonal events.
Following the closure of the venue’s winter exhibitions on Jennie Baptiste and Wayne McGregor, and the ever-popular Skate at Somerset House, the 2026 programme kicks off with the annual Spring commission in the venue’s neoclassical courtyard.
Created by German-Scottish artist and researcher Dana-Fiona Armour, Serpentine Currents (Feb 19-Apr 26) will feature large-scale serpentine structures derived from 3D scans of endangered sea snake specimens, illuminated by light patterns triggered by oceanographic data, addressing the looming threat of marine ecosystem collapse. Cheerful stuff!
This is followed by the return of Somerset House Studios’ biannual experimental music and sound series Assembly (Mar 25-28), which returns over four days in early spring with a programme of new commissions and live premieres.
Spring also sees the opening of The Museum of Edible Earth (Mar 18-Apr 26). A multi-sensory project by artist masharu, the museum has toured across the world since 2017 and features hundreds of globally-sourced earths, which visitors are invited to touch, smell and even taste in an exploration of rituals, culinary traditions and healing practices from across the world.
Somerset House has a history of delving into contemporary pop cultural trends with its exhibition programming – take last year’s Cute, or its current exhibition Virtual Beauty – and it continues in a similar vein with the excellent-sounding Holy Pop! (May 21-Aug 9), exploring how fandom shapes identity, values and community in the modern age.
The following month will mark the opening of a major summer exhibition on musician and cultural icon George Clinton (Jun 30-Sep 20). Europe’s first exhibition on Parliament Funkadelic’s visionary bandleader will encompass paintings, music, fashion, design and illustration exploring role as a pioneer of Afrofuturism and his influence on a diverse range of contemporary artists from Childish Gambino to Massive Attack.
The summer also sees the return of Somerset House Summer Series (Jul 16-26), the venue’s longstanding open-air concert series, recent editions of which have featured such eclectic cultural icons as Patti Smith, John Legend, Ghetts and Carly Rae Jepsen.
Autumn then sees the arrival of video and installation show Enclosure (Sep-Nov 2026), a first major London exhibition for Somerset House Studios resident Jenkin van Zyl, who was featured as one of Time Out’s London artists to watch in October 2024.
The season also marks ten years since the creation of Somerset House Studios, which will celebrate its first decade by taking over Embankment Gardens with 9 Hours (Oct 2026), a reimagination of landmark NYC performance series 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in the same month.
November then marks the return of another beloved calendar fixture with Skate at Somerset House (Nov 2026-Jan 2027), the winter ice skating pop-up which has taken over the Edmond J. Safra courtyard every winter since Somerset House’s inception.
Finally, the arts institution’s announcement also includes details of its early 2027 exhibition, Abracadabra! Magical Thinking in an Unmagical World (Feb 4-Apr 18), a major exhibition in the Embankment Galleries exploring magical thinking across time periods and cultures, from ancient rituals to modern-day mysticism.
All in all, an absolutely packed programme of cultural hits, with something for pretty much every type of Londoner. Time to get your diary out and start planning!
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