National Geographic Traveller (UK)
Outside the box
Get your culture fix with these new UK walking tours, exhibitions and installations — all without stepping into a gallery
Head outdoors for your art fix this autumn
NORFOLK
Anish Kapoor at Houghton Hall
Delayed but not diminished by coronavirus, the UK’s largest exhibition of outdoor sculptures by the Turner Prize winner is finally open to the public — and it’s free for under-18s. Featuring 24 seminal works spanning his 40-year career, these installations — including the iconic Sky Mirror (2018), a concave, topsy-turvy window onto the clouds above — pop against the elegant grounds and classical architecture of the 18th-century manor, built for Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Until 1 November. houghtonhall.com
LONDON Andy Leek residency, King’s Cross
London’s buzzy business and dining district is celebrating its postlockdown reawakening by partnering with street artist Andy Leek. The project: to use the whole 67-acre area as his canvas during a three-month-long residency. The brief: to create bright public art that reflects the (tentatively) hopeful mood of the country. It’s familiar territory for Leek — you may remember his 2015 Notes to Strangers project, in which uplifting, colourful, hand-written posters appeared across the capital. Until 30 September. kingscross.co.uk andy-leek.com
KEW GARDENS
Travel the World
Ten countries across six continents, all visited in one day — that’s what’s on offer this autumn, botanically speaking, at the Royal Botanical Gardens in London. Newly commissioned poems, prose and illustrations from international artists will help transport visitors as they explore a score of specially highlighted spots in the 320-acre site, from the flower-scented Mediterranean garden and the majestic Californian Redwood Grove through to the Japanese Garden of Peace, with its Great Pagoda. Until 16 October. kew.org
GUERNSEY
Renoir Walk
New for the Channel Island is a self-guided walk in the Moulin Huet valley, tracing the locations that inspired some of impressionist master Renoir’s paintings while on a summer holiday in 1883. Opened in 2019 to mark the centenary of his death, the Renoir Walk has five empty, ornate picture frames that look upon landscapes immortalised by the artist. Visitors can even scan a QR code to hear an audio guide by a world authority on his work. artforguernsey.com/renoir visitguernsey.com AMELIA DUGGAN