A walking tour
exploring vision,
sense and perception
in London
Join Open City for an ‘adventure of the optic nerve’ exploring how our sense of vision shapes our perception of London’s built environment
This walking tour — led by Golden Key Academy graduate Brandon Jackson — draws on neuroscience to offer participants a unique sensory journey through the capital where vision and perception are themselves put into question.
Throughout the tour, participants will embark on a guided experience where they are encouraged to move through spaces and focus their vision on their surroundings in new and unusual ways, rethinking how the built environment is perceived.
In our hurried London lives we all tend to disconnect from our surroundings. In this tour we will do the opposite of that. Together we will explore what French painter Pierre Bonnard called the "adventures of the optic nerve."
This walk teaches the art of moving mindfully through urban space – sensing the rhymes, rhythm, volumes, and voids that normally flow past unnoticed.
London is the perfect place for this perceptual adventure. It is an architectural collage with a mix of urban design patterns spanning millennia: from the intimate passageways of medieval London to gestures into the far distance reminiscent of the Acropolis.
As we move through some of the most powerful spaces in the city we will learn about how the brain turns light into space – and push our sensory capabilities to their limits.
Highlights of the route include: Inner Temple, Strand Aldwych, Somerset House, Air Street Arch and Burlington House.
Key information:
Meet: Outside Tudor Street Gate, Middle Temple, EC4Y 0BH (meet on the corner of Tudor Street and Temple Avenue)
2nd stop:
End: Outside the Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly W1J 0BD
Duration: 2.5 hrs approx
Access: There are steps in Inner Temple and can easily re-route if needed
Distance: 2 miles approx
Cost: £19.50 / £14.50 / £13.50 / £9.50
Tickets are non refundable and tours go ahead rain or shine…Please get in touch with Adrianna at tours@open-city.org.uk for access requirements or queries.
Meet the tour guide…
Brandon Jackson is an artist whose practice investigates the intersections of painting, architecture, and perception. He can often be spotted on London's streets with his plein air painting easel capturing the play of light across the city's spaces.
His work is grounded in his academic training studying visual neuroscience at Yale University and the history of science at the University of Cambridge. He regularly gives talks on this subject, most recently at the University of Greenwich and MIT.g a short film recently about getting lost in London.
Jackson is a graduate of the 2023 Golden Key Academy — a masterclass for urban and architectural tour guiding run by Open City. He joined the Open City tours team in 2024.
Open City's year-round tours programme is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.