Oxford students explore hidden gems in London

In March, our school was lucky to travel to London and visit the Camden Arts Centre and the Sigmund Freud Museum.

When traveling to London, these are most likely not the first places you’d plan to visit; you might not have even heard of them. In my opinion, you’re missing out on a lot if you don’t experience these places.

Camden Arts Centre

The first place we were lucky enough to see was the Camden Arts Centre. None of us knew what to expect from this museum, because no one had heard of it before. That was our huge omission! The Camden Arts Centre can hardly be called an ordinary museum, it’s more like a workshop of creativity. The museum provides an opportunity for new and independent authors to show their works to the public.

In addition, any person can visit various workshops on drawing and sculpture. Artists don’t create their works for the general public, so it wasn’t always so easy for students to understand the ideas that the authors wanted to convey. We were there during the run of two new, interconnected films by artist Beatrice Gibson, alongside an expanded events programme featuring the artists, poets, musicians, and wider community with whom the films have been made. We had the chance to watch them both.

The museum generated diverse opinions among students. But I am absolutely sure that no one remained indifferent. Exhibitions are held there for a limited amount of time, so don’t miss your chance to visit them and discover something new for yourself!

Sigmund Freud Museum

In the second part of our trip, our group visited the museum of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. This was his final home and that of his daughter Anna Freud, a pioneering child psychoanalyst.

We were all excited to learn something more about the great specialist’s autobiography and we plunged into the atmosphere where he worked. In the first part of our tour, we were told the story of this house and showed a film about the last years of Freud’s working experience. After, we had the opportunity to explore his house ourselves.

Everybody was really impressed by Sigmund Freud’s personal library of over 1,600 books. I think that facilitated group visits are a great way to get a deeper insight into Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and psychoanalysis in general. Freud Museum can be really helpful for students, particularly those studying psychology or religious studies.

All the students were very pleased with our little excursion to these wonderful places! On the way home, we discussed our thoughts on the visit to both Camden Arts Center and Freud Museum.

I would like to express my gratitude to our teachers Leo and Anthonia for organizing this trip. I think visiting these exhibitions will help A-level students who are studying psychology and it was also really useful for IB students who are doing their final TOK presentation.