UCL 200

2026 marks UCL’s 200th Anniversary. At the School for the Creative and Cultural Industries we have an exciting programme of events and activities to celebrate the bicentenary, exploring UCL’s past, celebrating the groundbreaking work of staff and students, and thinking about how it might change in the future.

In the UCL Urban Room and the Culture Lab

For UCL200 the UCL Urban Room and Culture Lab will explore the theme of Curating Shared and Just Futures. They will explore UCL’s past and future, through a series of co-curated exhibitions, curatorial activities and workshops. Working with a range of academic and community partners and stakeholders they will explore the values and methodologies of curatorial practice within our spaces, exploring their value for the university of the future.   

In the UCL Urban Room

Manifesting

12 March – 20 June, launch event 12 March 18:30 - 20:30
UCL Urban Room

An exhibition about manifestos through space, sound and text. This public exhibition considers the boundaries of disruptive thinking. It asks: Could an institution hold the people it historically excluded? If so, then what would its future look like?

Manifesting events include:

• 17 March, 18:00-19:30 (postponed)
   Urban Pamphleteer Launch- Radical Types: Grassroots Publishing in East London
• 4 June, Urban Rooms and Shared Futures 
  This event will consider the role and format of Urban Rooms in navigating University led regeneration programmes and the creation of cultural districts in cities. 

In the Culture Lab

Patterns of Innovation: Neon!  

May 2026  -May 2027
UCL Culture Lab

MSc Conservation students and neon specialists Claire Brew and Sue Shepherd curate a display on the discovery of neon by William Ramsay at UCL in 1898 and the innovative use of neon in sign-making and artworks since. Neon is in danger of becoming a lost craft and they consider the approach to care of both past artworks and future commissions.