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Seeing is Believing

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Past
  • Free
  • Late
Photograph of a woman wearing a colourful feathered headdress and face makeup, peeping around the red velvet curtain of a theatrical stage set.
Ada Campe, Thomas SG Farnetti. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Join us for a night of spectacle and illusion, wonder and deception, magic and trickery at this evening of performances, talks and workshops inspired by the ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ exhibition.

This is a special late-night event with a bar running throughout, serving magic-themed cocktails.

Dates

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Past

Past events

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  • Discussion
Experiencing the Impossible
Viewing Room
Magicians create illusions that allow us to experience the impossible by exploiting huge gaps in our conscious experience, holes of which we are typically unaware. Dr Gustav Kuhn will baffle you with magic and explain why our minds are so easily deceived. The 19:15 performance will be BSL interpreted.

Full event details

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  • Performance
Elegant Deceptions and the Poetry of Conjuring
Gallery 1
Watch exquisite sleight-of-hand conjuring with Michael Vincent, who will also explain his personal journey of reinvention as a deaf magician. The 22:00 performance will be BSL interpreted.

Full event details

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  • Performance
Sylar, Psychological Magician
Reading Room
Meet Sylar, a psychological magician who performs close-up magic combining the visuals of magic and the mysteries of the mind to create something unique.

Full event details

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  • Workshop
Orientalism and the Occult
Reading Room
Take part in a workshop with Shelley Saggar examining representations of the ‘exotic’ by magicians and what this says about who we expect to deceive us.

Full event details

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  • Performance
Black Magic
Henry Wellcome Auditorium
Watch in wonder as Magical Bones puts on a performance that brings together dance, history and magic.

Full event details

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  • Performance
Cabaret with Ada Campe and Her Psychic Duck
Reading Room
Join the devilishly eccentric Ada Campe for a performance celebrating a bygone era of razzmatazz, then hear from Naomi Paxton on suffragists in Edwardian theatre and feminism in modern magic.

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  • Performance
25’ by 25’
Williams Lounge
Attend a spoken-word performance inspired by transcripts from the seances of the medium Margery Crandon and curated by film researcher Myrto Farmaki.

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  • Performance
Cheat with Laura London
Henry Wellcome Auditorium
Laura London will take on the role of a con artist using sleight of hand and psychology to cheat her marks whilst playing cards.

Full event details

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  • Performance
Signed Magic
Gallery 1
Experience a unique form of conjuring combining sleight-of-hand with British Sign Language performed by Goldie Puricelli, then hear about the challenge of combining covert manipulation with using her hands to sign.

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Need to know

Location

This is an event with several different activities. Check specific sub-events for their locations.

Multi-part programme

This is a large-scale event with several different activities, which may include drop-in sessions, scheduled performances, workshops or talks. Check specific activities for details and to see if you need to book a ticket or just show up. Spaces for drop-in activities are limited and may run out if we are busy.

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call

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