Great exhibitions in South Kensington

From miniskirts and hot pants to vibrant tights and makeup, discover how Mary Quant launched a fashion revolution on the British high street, with over 200 garments and accessories, including unseen pieces from the designer's personal archive.

Discover the story of Princess Victoria, the young girl destined to be queen, in the rooms where she was born and raised at Kensington Palace. This new permanent exhibition will explore how an indulged young princess blossomed into the independent and iconic monarch we remember.

Explore Queen Victoria’s private life behind her carefully-managed public image in Victoria: Woman and Crown. The new display, created to mark the 200th anniversary of Victoria's birth, will re-examine how she balanced her role as a wife and mother with that of Queen of an expanding empire.

For decades, autonomous vehicles have been heralded as a new technology that could change the way we live our lives. Driverless: Who is in control? opening on 12 June 2019 at the Science Museum will explore how close we are to living in a world driven by thinking machines.

Discover the remarkable world of codebreaking, ciphers and secret communications in our upcoming must-see, free exhibition. Explore over a century’s worth of communications intelligence through hand-written documents, declassified files and previously unseen artefacts.

Take a backstage look at the creative process of one of the world's most inventive photographers through his photographs, films, photographic sets, and special installations – including a new series of photographs influenced by the V&A's collections.

As we approach another major turning point in automotive design, this exhibition looks at the role of the car in shaping the world we live in today.

Step into a full-scale Mars home, immerse yourself in the untouched beauty of the landscape and learn how rethinking daily life for a zero-waste, clean energy-powered civilisation might help future generations on Earth. Featuring immersive environments & original objects from NASA, ESA & SpaceX.

Designer Maker User, the Design Museum's only permanent exhibition, features almost 1000 items of twentieth and twenty-first century design viewed through the angles of the designer, manufacturer and user, including a crowdsourced wall.

Find out if you’ve got the problem-solving, big-thinking, team-working skills to be a globe-trotting engineer of tomorrow.

Mathematics is too often perceived as dry and complex, but this new gallery will tell stories that place the subject at the heart of our lives, exploring how mathematicians, their tools and ideas have helped to shape the modern world.

Meet your ancient relatives, trace the origins and evolution of our species, and explore what makes us human.

Showcasing over 1100 objects from the V&A’s collections of 17th- and 18th-century European art and design in a suite of seven galleries.

Artist Lee Ufan brings new public sculpture to Kensington Gardens. Comprised of two, angled, mirrored, steel sheets and two different-sized stones, Relatum – Stage will merge the natural and industrial in an installation that reflects the surrounding environment of the Park.

IKEA and the Design Museum present the Last Straw, an installation featuring the last ever single-use plastic straw IKEA will serve or sell in any store in the UK and Ireland.

Embark on a journey around Earth as seen by astronauts on board the International Space Station, in a real-time Ultra High Definition video reconstructed from time-lapse photography sourced from NASA archives. Drop-in.

The exhibition brings together post-war Japanese sculpture associated with the influential Mono-Ha (School of Things) to a wider audience.

Jenna Sutela is a Finnish-born, Berlin-based artist who works with words, sounds and other living materials to create experimental installations and performances that bring together biology, technology and cosmology.

Utilising various media, including video, the internet, interactive technologies, photography, drawing, painting and watercolour, Suzanne Treister explores emerging technologies, alternative belief systems and potential human futures through a newly commissioned book and web-based augmented reality work.

Curator Claude Adjil leads a tour of the Patrick Staff exhibition. BSL interpretation is available on request for all our Saturday Talks.

What do we talk about when we talk about Japanese food? This display traces the history and origins of food from Japan and attempts to tease apart some elements of the culinary culture embedded in the daily lives of the Japanese people.

Explore the contrasting worlds of Japan’s urban future and rural traditions in WOW’s new digital art installation, a multidisciplinary new media visual design studio from Tokyo and Sendai in Japan creating experiences through art, product design, branding and prototyping.

Find out how the car has developed the world around us. Learn about innovations transforming the future of driving, tapping onto both art and technology.

In the centenary year of the Bauhaus, this exhibition by the MA Curating Contemporary Design examines the role of the Architectural Association (AA) in breaking with the Modernist tradition and redefining architectural practice and education.

Multi-media works by several different artists explore the experience of Sickle Cell Disease, a condition which millions of people suffer from and which is still largely not understood by much of the population. This exhibition is in the Gallery of the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication.

Now in its eighth cycle, the theme for 2019's prize is 'Hope'. Revealing how a mood of optimism can drive us towards change, the twelve shortlisted photographers will have their work exhibited at the V&A, and the winner is announced on 13 November

Documenting the world through photography has been a focus since the 1880s, when John Thomson was appointed as the Society’s official ‘Instructor of Photography’. Thomson referred to the medium as ‘the absolute lights and shadows of all things seen and that are of value in expanding our knowledge of the world in which we live’.

Featuring three thousand objects and covering an area equivalent to 1,500 hospital beds, Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries will be the magnificent new home for the most significant medical collections in the world.

This exhibition of work by Jiro Takamatsu (1936-1998) and Keiji Uematsu (b.1947) will bring post-war Japanese sculpture associated with the influential Mono-Ha (School of Things) to a wider audience.

The fifty-fifth Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will immerse you in the breathtaking diversity of the natural world. Encounter the beauty and fragility of wildlife, see fascinating animal behaviour and get to know extraordinary species, exhibited on 100 stunning lightbox displays.

Discover the most innovative designs across fashion, architecture, digital, transport, product and graphic design from the past 12 months, as nominated by the public and design experts from around the world.

The Art of Innovation explores the relationship between science and art over the past 250 years, and how it has helped to interpret, study and explore the world around us.

Come face-to-face with a full-size engineering model of BepiColombo, the European Space Agency’s first ever spacecraft to explore Mercury. Standing over six metres tall, this Structural Thermal Model (STM) of the spacecraft was used to test BepiColombo’s resilience during its seven-year journey to Mercury.

This exhibition will present the kimono as a dynamic and constantly evolving icon of fashion, revealing the sartorial, aesthetic and social significance of the garment from the 1660s to the present day, both in Japan and the rest of the world.

From rucksacks to despatch boxes, Birkin bags to Louis Vuitton luggage, Bags! will explore the style, function, design and craftsmanship of the ultimate accessory.

Bringing together 200 rarely-seen masterpieces, this exhibition will present the exquisite medium as a unified art form for the first time, exploring its pivotal role in understanding, interpreting and documenting the natural world.

Exploring its origins, adaptations and reinventions over 157 years, this immersive, theatrical show will expand ACMI's award-winning exhibition, and chart the evolution of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland from manuscript to global phenomenon.

Exploring 5,000 years of art, design and culture, Epic Iran will shine a light on one of the greatest historic civilisations, its journey into the 21st century and its monumental artistic achievements, which remain unknown to many.

Albert Oehlen is one of the most innovative and significant artists working today. He has been a key figure in contemporary art since the 1980s. Through expressionist brushwork and surrealist gestures, he engages with the history of painting, pushing its essential components to bold new extremes.

A series of striking photographs of science in action will go on display at the Science Museum as part of the Royal Photographic Society’s inaugural Science Photographer of the Year competition. The exhibition showcases extraordinary, breathtaking images of science in action.

The Design Museum was the world’s first museum devoted to contemporary design. Through archival material on display, revisit the birth of the institution thirty years ago.

Whether we travel for work or pleasure, air travel has become an integral part of our lives. However, our consumption habits mean that we are leaving behind great trails of waste every time we fly.

Discover how London grew from a lively capital city to a global hub for trade, commerce, and scientific enquiry between 1550 - 1800. This new free gallery spanning over 650 m² takes visitors on a journey through the metropolis during a time of momentous change.

Museum of the Moon is a touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram. The 6 metre model will be at the Museum in time for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, accompanied by an exciting programme of events for space enthusiasts of all ages.