The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture

The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture is a bold and wondrous new space at the heart of Henham Park, curated by the award-winning independent team at The Cosmic Shambles Network, where curiosity collides with comedy, culture, chords and the cosmos.

This brand-new arena will be unlike anything Latitude has hosted before. In their unique style, and drawing on 19 years of curating shows at Latitude, the Cosmic Shambles Forest will be part science festival, part book club, part comedy club, part music gig, part interactive museum, and all wonder! — The Cosmic Shambles Forest is a whole new world of fascination, created for both the curious and the creatively inclined.

At the heart of the Cosmic Shambles Forest will be The Apollo, a dedicated stage and performance space that will play host to a rich programme of live talks, podcasts, music, panels, performances, family events, late-night screenings, and more. Expect topics as wide-ranging as climate science, horror cinema, particle physics, literature, neurodiversity, space exploration, mental health, and maggots. (Yes, there will be maggots.)

By day, the Forest will be bursting with energy, with live science talks, thrilling hands-on experiments, and curious minds at work. Museum Street will be packed with interactive exhibits and pop-up mini-museums from incredible places such as the National Physical Laboratory, Royal Museums Greenwich, the Crab Museum, and loads more surprises around every corner. By night, it transforms into a woodland cinema screening Cosmic Shambles documentary features, followed by Robin Ince’s Uncanny Film Club, showing something strange, obscure, and unmissable, hand-picked by Robin himself.

There’ll be a café, a bar, a bookshop, and a cluster of Discovery Sheds where audiences of all ages can poke, prod, puzzle, and play their way through fascinating exhibits and meet experts, scientists and performers.