Free things to do in London this weekend

Costa Book Award-winning novelist Caleb Azumah Nelson, acclaimed music journalist Emma Warren and screenwriter Nathan Bryon are just a few of the names on the line-up for the latest edition of Deptford Literature Festival, a four-day bonanza celebrating the diversity and creativity of southeast London. Sponsored by Arts Council England, The Albany Theatre and Lewisham Council, this year’s programme features 48 separate events (45 of which are free to attend) ranging from talks and readings to creative workshops and walking tours. Look out for more details on the programme soon. 

Pioneering American artist Theaster Gates returns to London for the first time since his Serpentine Pavilion in 2022 with a show taking over the whole of White Cube Bermondsey. Following a recent show at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, this exhibition of architectural interventions, large-scale installations, film works and archival presentations will honour the legacy of Malcolm X, as well as referencing the archive of the late Japanese journalist Ei Nagata and his partner, Haruhi Ishitani, who dedicated their lives to preserving the activist’s legacy after witnessing his assassination. Gates’s community-focused approach and his very modern take on abstraction and ceramics – filled with tar, clay, music and history – makes him an artist worth getting excited about, no matter what he’s working on

The Big Egg Hunt returns to the streets of London this Easter, with over 100 decorated large-scale eggs to be found in neighbourhoods across the city. Collect the eggs by ticking them off in the free app to win prizes. If there’s one egg in particular that really takes your fancy, you can bid to take it home for good in a silent auction, with all money raised going to support Elephant Family’s conservation work in South Asia.

For the latest in Goldsmiths CCA’s commissioning series ‘Episodes’, South Korean artist Eunjo Lee showcases her dystopian-filled digital work. Following a narrative centred around figures in the middle ground between human and matter, who sacrifice their bodies to become pure light, the pieces in this exhibition explore themes including the liminal space of acts of creation and the never-ending cycles of life and death.