A Discovery Circle for those who want to visit and discuss exhibitions with others

Man and boy (father and son?) look at photographs and display panels at the 'London Pride' exhibition, held at Charing Cross underground station. The exhibition aimed to show visitors that life was going on as usual, despite the air raids and other hardships faced by Londoners.
Ministry of Information Exhibitions during the Second World War, London, England, UK, 1940
‘London Pride’ exhibition at Charing Cross underground station. Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Details of our next meetings:

Friday, 31 October 2025 at 1pm: ‘Up Town Again‘ at Two Queens Gallery and Studio on Queen Street (Cultural Quarter). This exhibition features the work of six Leicestershire artists.  Meet in Phoenix Arts cafe at 1pm.

Friday, 5 December 2025 at 1pm, ‘Mary Linwood: Art, Stitch and Life’ at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery (New Walk). Meet in Soft Touch Arts Cafe on New Walk/Museum Square

More about this Circle

The purpose of this Circle is to visit together and to share views/knowledge on exhibitions which are being held in Leicester and Leicestershire. The exhibitions relate to history, art and art history, material culture and archaeology. While currently we are limiting exhibitions to those within Leicestershire, in the future we may branch out to adjacent counties.

In order to reduce costs for Circle members, we generally visit free or very low cost exhibitions. These are mainly in person but sometimes we may watch them online. Occasionally, we may view an exhibition which is streamed in a cinema.

Timing of meetings

Meetings take place monthly (4-6 weeks) at a time agreed by those attending. The timing is flexible to accommodate the different timetables of Circle members.

Format of the Circle

We meet at an exhibition which we have agreed to visit in a previous meeting. One or two members of the Circle will offer to find out a bit about the exhibition and will either share this information before the meeting or at the start of it.

We view the exhibition together and then go to a nearby café, which isn’t too noisy, to discuss our reactions to the exhibition. The kind of things we discuss are:

  1. The general impact of the exhibition and our responses to it.
  2. Any additional information that we found out during the viewing.
  3. What we think about the context to the exhibition: how it is displayed, the space it is in and the textual information and labelling.
  4. The historical, political, colonial and/or local context to what is being exhibited.

At the end of the meeting we decide together other exhibitions we will visit. Members bring along suggestions – and their diaries! We aim to vary the kinds of exhibitions we visit. If there are more than 7 of us viewing the exhibition, we will split into two groups to discuss it.

We take turns leading the meeting. A list of our upcoming meetings can be found below.

Our ground rules:

  1. We take turns preparing for meetings and share the chairing of it. This includes sharing the pre-exhibition research and any admin that is required.
  2. We aim to make the meeting accessible as possible. For example we select exhibitions which are accessible to anyone with mobility issues and ensure that the post-exhibition café meeting is also accessible.
  3. We welcome people who just want to come along to one of two meetings.
  4. We encourage other Circle members to contribute while avoiding putting someone on the spot.
  5. We show respect for others’ viewpoints on the exhibition but we do not tolerate racism or other forms of discrimination.
  6. We are open to changing our minds about an exhibition on hearing the views of others.

Future meetings:

Friday, 31 October 2025 at 1pm: Up Town Again at Two Queens Gallery and Studio on Queen Street (Cultural Quarter). This exhibition features the work of six Leicestershire artists.  Meet in Phoenix Arts cafe at 1pm.

Exhibitions we have previously visited:

Friday, 17 October 2025: ‘We Grown-Ups Can Also Be Afraid: Creativity in Times of Crisis’ at Attenborough Arts.

Friday, 12 September 2025: ‘We Present: Leicester Adult Education‘, an exhibition of artwork by students at the Leicester Adult Education College.

Friday, 1 August 2025: ‘The Lives We Lead: Who We Were, Who We Are’ at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery (New Walk Museum).

Tuesday, 24 June 2025: De Montfort University Degree Show.

Friday, 30 May 2025: 100 Black Women Who Have Made a Mark, Curve Theatre.

Friday, 25 April 2025: My Jewellery, My Story Charnwood Museum, Loughborough.

Friday, 28 March 2025: A World of Colour & Emotion: Satta Hashem. An Exhibition in New Walk Museum

Friday, 21 February 2025: Crip Arte Spazio: The Disability Arts Movement in Venice. An exhibition in the Attenborough Arts Centre

Friday 10 January 2025: Dryad Basketry: A Global Collection. An exhibition in the New Walk Museum and Gallery