ART & CULTURE: WHAT'S NOT TO BE MISSED IN JANUARY?

La Fomo is your go-to space for discovering unique events and venues beyond the beaten tracks. Guided by local tastemakers, we champion fresh perspectives and unfiltered voices, uncovering art and cultural experiences that defy the mainstream.

In collaboration with Shoreditch Arts Club and curated exclusively for its members, here are the Top 10 events on our radar for January—ones we think you really shouldn’t miss.

PERFORMANCE & DANCE

ŁUKASZ TWARKOWSKI: THE EMPLOYEES

SOUTHBANK CENTRE

Southwark I 16 January - 19 January

Łukasz Twarkowski makes his hotly anticipated London debut with this adaptation of the dystopian sci-fi epic by Olga Ravn, nominated for the International Booker Prize 2021. This visually stunning dark satire – perfect for fans of Kubrick – combines theatre, film and installation with flair.

The story of The Employees unfolds in an undetermined near future, on a spaceship carrying people and humanoid robots, with Earth having been annihilated. Told through the fragmentary scraps of reports left by the spaceship crew, a closed community is forced to confront questions about the differences between the human and the non-human, and the very essence of consciousness, posing the question: are the brain and the mind the same thing?

Performed in Polish with English subtitles. Tickets here.

Images by Natalia Kabanow

PERFORMANCE, SCREENING, TALKS

HYPER FUNCTIONAL, ULTRA HEALTHY

SOMERSET HOUSE STUDIO

Temple I 28 January - 1 February

Commissioned and produced by Somerset House Studios, Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy is a biannual series dedicated to examining the intersections of well-being and societal shifts, particularly in the face of technological and ecological change. It invites audiences to engage with history, lived experiences, and radical ideas to shape a healthier, more equitable future.

Get your tickets here.

Right image: Candela Capitan I Middle image: SWARM collective I Left image: Kate Cooper Freedom of Movement

FILM FESTIVAL

LONDON SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

VARIOUS CINEMA

17 January to 26 January

Each January, London Short Film Festival hosts ten days of short films, live events, Q&As and multidisciplinary curation. They present between 250-500 British and international films each edition, collaboratively programmed down from 5000+ open submissions, alongside Special Events and an industry offering of workshops, panels and discussion for filmmakers and workers.

Check the full programme here.

Left image: How To Make a Friend I Middle image: Alien Extravaganza I Right image: Women in Action

ART SHOW

NEW CONTEMPORARIES

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Charing Cross I 15 January - 23 March

Marking 75 years of New Contemporaries, the annual exhibition is a unique platform, which provides emerging and early career artists with a wider audience to their work. This edition features 35 artists and the works on show offer an overview of urgent lived concerns, interests and social realities from this generation of artists. Themes include the fluctuations and cycles in the natural world, sustainability and decay; boundaries, borders and fragmented memories; the commodification of mindfulness, self-care, pop culture and consumerism. Other works explore kinship amongst communities, juxtaposed with those that suggest an alienation or ambivalence towards a digitally accelerated world.

Full event programme and ticket booking here.

New Contemporaries at KARST, The Levinsky Gallery and MIRROR, Plymouth. Photograph: Dom Moore. 

LIVE MUSIC

B O D I E S

EARTH THEATRE

Dalston I 28 January 19:00 - 22:30

Having recently sold out both Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Berlin’s Philhamonie concert halls, the Berlin-based 8-piece vocal ensemble’s concerts are touching, adventurous and above all transcendent. Featuring eight exceptional voices and no instruments, B O D I E S delivers a performance about what it means to be made of matter. Musically spanning indie and neo-classical with a strong ear for melody, it’s no exaggeration to state they have a sound all their own.

Get your tickets here.

PERFORMANCE

MIME LONDON

VARIOUS VENUE

14 January to 1 February

Essentially wordless and multi-disciplinary, MimeLondon's programme embraced circus-theatre, puppetry/animation, object theatre, mime, live art and physical theatre. Expect to see work that’s edgy and unusual spread across the Barbican, Southbank Centre, Sadler’s Wells and The Place, with a series of workshops led by experts in their field at Little Angel Studios and Shoreditch Town Hall.

Full programme and tickets here.

EXHIBITION

PREM SAHIB: DOCUMENTS OF A RECENT PAST

STUDIO VOLTAIRE

Clapham I 15 January - 23 March

Documents of a recent past is a new exhibition by Prem Sahib (b. 1982, London) that brings together image, text, furniture and sound that centre around and depart from The Backstreet — London’s oldest and longest-running gay leather bar, which closed in 2022 after almost four decades.  

Sahib works primarily in sculpture, installation, performance, sound, video and photography. Sahib’s practice embodies a poetic and provocative “destabilised minimalism”, referencing the architecture of public and private queer spaces, structures that shape individual and communal identities, senses of belonging, alienation and confinement. 

Opening on 14 January 18:00 - 21:00. All information here.

Prem Sahib, The Backstreet, 2017. Images courtesy of the artist and Phillida Reid, London.

Photography by Prem Sahib and Mark Blower.

PERFORMANCE

HOLLY HERNDON & MAT DRYHURST: THE CALL FINISSAGE

STONE NEST

Leicester Square I 30 January 19:00

A choral recording session to close Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s Serpentine Exhibition. In developing The Call, the team toured the UK, working with 15 different choirs to record a training data set for a suite of choral AI models. The choirs sang from a songbook specifically composed for AI training.

During this informal recording session, London Contemporary Voices and audience members are invited to sing from Herndon and Dryhust’s songbook and record a final session that will be added to the choral dataset.

The recording session will last approximately 90 minutes. Audience members who would like to sing will join the choir —no music reading or prior experience is required. People who do not wish to participate can watch from the gallery.

LISTENING EXPERIENCE

PITCHBLACK PLAYBACK: KENDRICK LAMAR 'GNX'

RIVERSIDE STUDIOS

Hammersmith I 21 January 20:00

Immerse yourself in Kendrick Lamar's last album 'GNX' listening session in the dark, in all its power and detail, played loud in uncompressed audio on a powerful cinema sound system. No distractions; just you and the music.

Secure your tickets here.

Image via Kendrick Lamar's Instagram @kendricklamar

TALK

SPACES OF RESISTANCE: ART AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN 1980 BRIXTON

AUTOGRAPH

Brick Lane I 21 January 14:30 - 18:30

Brixton in the 1980s was shaped by radical action with activist groups, community centres and art spaces confronting disparities in race, gender and wealth. Within this politically charged atmosphere, photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s Railton Road studio transcended into a sanctuary visualising black queer self-expression, offering a powerful lens into the intersections of identity, politics and art.

Autograph’s new exhibition The Studio – Staging Desire features never-before-seen photographs from this era by Fani-Kayode, who was a prominent figure in the Black British art scene and contributing member of the Brixton Artists Collective. To commemorate his radical vision, this symposium will bring together artists, historians, writers and residents who experienced and participated in this creative moment in social history – as well as those inspired by its legacy.

Full programme and tickets here.