Exhibitions & installations

Alongside the talks, workshops and discussions taking place throughout the RGS Explore Weekend, a range of exhibitions, installations and self-guided experiences will be available across the Society. These spaces offer opportunities to discover fieldwork and expedition projects past and present, engage with creative responses to exploration, and encounter stories, sounds and images from around the world.

Exploration now: fieldwork and expeditions today

Located in the Pavilion, Exploration now: fieldwork and expeditions today brings together stories, discoveries and creative outputs emerging from contemporary fieldwork and expeditions around the world.

The exhibition showcases a diverse range of research, photography, artwork and multimedia installations, offering different ways to engage with the places, people and ideas shaping exploration today. Through contributions from researchers, expedition teams, artists and storytellers, visitors will discover how exploration is being conducted, communicated and experienced in the twenty-first century.

Featured within the exhibition is The Listening Post, a special audio installation showcasing projects supported through the Society's Journey in Audio programme.

The Listening Post

What does our world sound like, and what can listening reveal about the people, places and environments around us?

The Listening Post presents a collection of audio stories created by recipients of the Society's Journey in Audio Award. Through field recordings, personal narratives and creative soundscapes, these works explore relationships between people, nature and place.

From the wetlands of Brazil to the forests of Scotland and Poland, and from the calls of migrating birds to the hidden sounds of healthy soils, visitors are invited to experience the world through listening. Put on a pair of headphones, take a moment to pause, and discover a different perspective on our world.

Field Notes

The Field Notes posters showcase projects undertaken by recipients of Society grants, highlighting research, expeditions and personal challenges conducted across some of the world's most remarkable landscapes. From glaciers in Norway and remote fjords in Greenland to the mountains of Central Asia and the Himalayas, these projects explore the impacts of climate change, push the boundaries of exploration and investigate new ways of understanding and experiencing our world.

Through a series of research posters distributed throughout the building and by meeting the people behind the projects, you'll learn about the aims, methods and findings of these projects and gain insight into life in the field.

Explore 50 exhibition

The Director's Gallery will host a special exhibition telling the story of the last 50 years of geographical exploration supported by the Society through the annual Explore Weekend. Further details will be announced soon.

The Last of the Nomads: In Search of Those Who Listen Still

Displayed across the Society's terrace and gardens, The Last of the Nomads: In Search of Those Who Listen Still is an outdoor photographic exhibition by explorer and photographer Cat Vinton.

Featuring large-format images gathered over more than a decade of travel and fieldwork, the exhibition celebrates communities whose lives remain closely connected to traditional nomadic ways of living. Visitors will encounter portraits and landscapes from Tibetan nomad communities, Kazakh herders living in Mongolia's Altai Mountains, and the Moken sea nomads of the Mergui Archipelago.

The photographs explore themes of resilience, identity, culture and the relationship between people and place, while reflecting on how communities adapt to a rapidly changing world. Installed on weatherproof panels throughout the Society's outdoor spaces, the exhibition invites visitors to slow down, look closely and consider the value of listening to and learning from different ways of life.