Explore History, Culture & Writing

Explore the work of three radical artists whose work and practice defied convention in modern art from the 1920s to 1960s. Discover how each artist challenged and transcended society’s expectations of being a ‘muse’ by living freely and making art in a variety of media, from painting and sculpture to collage, photography and performance.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks, we will watch and discuss film. Taking its cue from the famous Parisian ciné-club set up by the celebrated critic and writer, André Bazin, ‘the single thinker most responsible for bestowing on cinema the prestige both of an artform and of an object of knowledge’, and the man who foresaw the emergence of film studies as a legitimate discipline of academic study, our contemporary incarnation of the film club will offer a curated series of films for detailed study, discussion and debate. Each film will be introduced, placed in both its cinematic, cultural and historic context. In sharing our viewing in City Lit’s premier screening room, the Cultureplex, we will approximate the experience of watching film in the cinema, one that is intense and fully focussed in a way that other modes of viewing often are not. After the screening we will devote the rest of the class to a collective exploration of the film, led by the tutor, but involving everyone in a participatory discussion that will allow all to express their responses, their views, their thoughts on the film screened.

Explore and discuss contemporary art on show in London. Each week we’ll visit 1-2 commercial galleries or a public gallery and examine specific exhibitions of contemporary art across a range of media including painting, works on paper, photography, new media and sculpture.

Maps have a long and fascinating history, yet it was really the 20th Century that saw them come alive as an artistic medium, as artists turned to them to explore their place in a disoriented world. Discover the many ways artists have worked with maps, from Surrealism through to Digital Media.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Explore the art of Chinese artists and filmmakers from the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st, as they try to make sense of a world on the cusp between the old and the new, marked by encounters with imperialism and iconoclasm. Learn what place art had in socio-political movements, and how it reflected the hopes and anxieties of its time.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Explore London’s rich history in a series of guided walks. Each week we examine a different neighbourhood & era from the capital’s past. We look at its people, both rich and poor, & the events that shaped the city.



Initial lecture via Zoom followed by 6 guided walks.



This course will be delivered online and in person. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Architecture is the one art form that we cannot avoid even if we try. It shapes our environment and the way we live our lives, so understanding why buildings look the way they do is a vital part of understanding the world around us. This introductory course will enable you to do just that by examining the development of architectural styles from Ancient Greece to the present day.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.