What's On - Love Camden
What's On
Camden events, exhibitions, arts and culture.
Radical Screen Printing
Create your own activist designs in these radical screen printing workshops.
Be inspired by the the work by 1960s social activist Nun and screen printed, Corita
Kent as well as a local tradition of activism – Ossulston Street is where teenage
sisters printed the anarchist paper The Torch in the 1890s – and delve into the
Somers Town’s social activist history for slogan ideas like ‘Art in everyday life!’ and
'Defend Council Housing'!
Print onto posters or upcycle a T-shirt. All will be displayed in an exhibition at the end
of the Festival at the People's Museum Somers Town.
Blank T-shirts will be available to purchase to print onto or bring your own.
The workshop will be delivered by an experienced artist and art technician.
It takes place in the Ossulston Tenants Hall - an insight into social housing provision
of community spaces!
Roundhouse Poetry Collective
Hear from the freshest voices in poetry!
Roundhouse Poetry Collective Live presents an exciting evening of performances from the current Roundhouse Poetry Collective.
Hosted by poet, playwright, novelist, and Roundhouse Poetry Collective lead tutor, Cecilia Knapp.
Featuring:
- Sana Elwakili
- Noah Jacob
- Lola Oseni
- Isabelle Clarke
- Ella Dorman-Gajic
- Benin Khalil
- George Duggan
- Tife Kusoro
- Francis Mukiibi
- Arun Jeetoo
Somerstown Community Festival
After a two-year break due to the pandemic, Camden’s biggest street party returns.
Everyone is invited to this fantastic free festival, run by the community, for the community. There’ll be a market, funfair, homemade street food, film screenings, street theatre, live spoken word and music performances and more. If you haven’t been before, you’re in for a treat, and if you have then you’ll already know how good it is. (details to follow)
(Image from The Somers Town Festival Facebook)
Regent’s Park – Fantasy Terraces and Secret Gardens
On this walk, led by Camden Guides Richard Cohen and Jo Wilkinson, we will see the most beautiful Nash Terraces on the Outer Circle and their gardens as well as Lasdun's mid-century masterpiece at the Royal College of Physicians with its displays of medicinal and poisonous plants.
We will visit a serene and hidden garden in the Inner Circle. We will hear about Prince Regent's grand scheme to make London the most magnificent city in Europe. We will look at how the buildings, gardens and open spaces of Regent’s Park act to enhance our lives.
Camden Mela
Come and celebrate the best of British Asian culture with live music, arts and crafts, food stalls and a funfair.
Now in its 30th year, Camden’s annual Mela brings a feast of sights, sounds, smells and tastes to Coram’s Fields. There’ll be bazaars, folk troupes, traditional and contemporary music and dance, and plenty of free family activities for the kids.
Ever wondered about the origins of the word ‘Mela? It’s a Sanskrit word for ‘gathering’ or ‘to meet’. It’s used across South Asia for gatherings of all sizes. Traditionally, it means ‘Village Fair’.
Hillview Festival 2022
Set in and around the leafy Victorian Hillview Estate, this free, family friendly street party brings a rich and dynamic programme of live music, dance, puppetry, poetry, circus skills, a community marketplace, drop-in arts and craft sessions along with other exciting performances and activities to the cobbled streets of King’s Cross.
Our culturally lush festival is packed with an array of amazing local talent including Camden based Cubafrobeat band Lokkhi Terra meets Dele Sosimi; London Bengali musical fusion from Khiyo; a Kerbside Ceilidh with Folk Dance Remixed; fiery Flamenco with La Escuela de Baile; Ska from The Stamford Hill Billy Street Band and so much more!!
The marketplace will include an eclectic mix of stalls offering all sorts of tantalising treats, including taster massage sessions, a variety of food and home-made cakes, arts and crafts, fun and games.
You’ll also be able to relax with a drink at our festive cabaret bar or enjoy tea and cakes in our courtyard café.
We just can’t wait to welcome you for a fabulous day out!
Check our website for programme details and information on how to book a stall.
www.hillviewfestival.co.uk
Day of the Dead: A celebration of life
Dia de Muertos is one of the most important religious holidays in Mexico. This festival is a unique opportunity to come and experience this Mexican tradition in central London.
The packed programme provides a veritable feast for the senses with Mexican arts and crafts, food, live Mariachi music and dance. There’ll also be ofrendas (offerings for the dead), films, poetry, presentations, literature, face painting and family workshops.
The piazza will host an installation of Corn, poetry, book exchange and sale, face painting and other surprises. And if you’ve never experienced an authentic Mexican Market, on Ossulston Street you’ll find over 40 traders bringing the Best of Mexico in the UK.
Come and join Camden for a celebration of the Windrush generation, their descendants and their contribution to the UK.
Dance, music and fun.
3:45pm Whitfield Gardens, Tottenham Court Road
Adjacent to Tottenham Court Rd
Whitfield Street W1T 2RJ
5:30pm Swiss Cottage Open Space,
Adjacent to Swiss Cottage Library
and Leisure Centre
NW3 3HA
Hampstead Summer Festival Family Garden Party
Fun for all the family in the lovely grounds of Keats House.
Let us entertain your kids with rhyme-time, face painting, art activities, a birds of prey demonstration and a giant chess set, while the adults relax and enjoy tea, cake and the wine bar on the lawn.
A Hampstead Summer Festival event, raising funds for Keats Community Library and Hampstead School of Art. Free entry.
Hampstead Summer Festival
This year’s festival features five events in the beautiful grounds of Keats House. It all starts with Picture the Heath on Sunday 19 June...
The festival kicks off on 19 June when budding artists aged 16 plus are invited to come and Picture the Heath. Run by Hampstead School of Art, finished artworks will go on display at Art Fair Day on Sunday 3 July.
Next up there’s a double header of free fun on the weekend of 25-26 June. On the Saturday, from 2-5pm, it’s the Keats Grove Community Festival. This series of large-scale murals on canvas will celebrate our local creative communities in a gallery without walls.
Sunday brings the Family Garden Party, 2-5pm. There’ll be storytelling, art activities, a giant chess set, tea, cake and a wine bar, plus a birds of prey display!
Finally, on Saturday 2 July, there’ll be two outdoor performances of The Taming of the Shrew at 1pm and 5pm. Don’t miss this family-friendly rendition of Shakespeare’s classic Elizabethan love story.
Lily van der Stokker: Thank You Darling
Camden Art Centre presents the first institutional solo exhibition in London by Lily van der Stokker, one of the Netherlands’ most celebrated contemporary artists.
The exhibition will bring together a group of works made by van der Stokker between 1989 and 2021, which address ideas of society, home, friendship, work, finances, illness and care; as well as speaking to this extraordinary contemporary moment. While some works have previously been realised in other contexts and spaces, others are presented across Camden Art Centre’s galleries for the first time. The exhibition will also include a number of original drawings on paper and works on canvas produced over the last 30 years.
Van der Stokker draws her images with an exacting care and precision, configuring them against one another for the specifics of each space, before scaling them up and executing them directly onto the gallery walls. Her monumental wall paintings – with their distinctive colour palate and highly decorative motifs, including flowers, clouds, patterns and curlicues – play on apparently clichéd stereotypes of femininity, but her work has a depth and toughness that belies its saccharine aesthetic. For more than 30 years she has immersed herself in the supposedly mundane material of everyday life, taking seriously the intricacies of the small, the personal and the overlooked, while at the same time forging a radical feminist practice in a language she has made entirely her own. Behind its apparent softness and sincerity – once described as ‘so sweet it can kill’ – her work remains both provocative and radical.
Among the Machines
Among the Machines is a major new exhibition of works from the Collection examining how humans interact with machines and non-human entities, featuring new augmented reality artworks created in direct response to the gallery space. As artificial intelligence (AI) develops to potentially surpass us, this exhibition asks: how will we respond to a stage of evolution beyond the human?
Thirteen international artists from across different generations investigate the impact of technology on our sense of individual and collective identity, and our relationship to the planet. From disrupting the biases of data sets, to exploring new types of consciousness and alternative evolutionary branches, the artists in this exhibition imagine and materialise new possibilities for co-existence with other lifeforms.
Alongside installations of video, sculpture and interactive computer works, visitors will be able to access a virtual enhancement of the physical exhibition through their smartphones. Augmented reality (AR) technology creates a portal through which audiences can view gravity-defying objects animated in their physical surroundings. Created by Joey Holder, Lauren Moffatt and Theo Triantafyllidis, the new AR works are produced in partnership with Daata, an online platform that commissions and supports artists in utilising technology to realise ambitious projects in the physical and digital realms. Daata brings these new AR works to life via the new Daata AR app.
Fitzrovia Fete
Following the success of last year’s launch event, the fabulous Fitzrovia Fete returns for a second year.
Fitzrovia Fete is the brainchild of Emily Baker and Jack Fawdry who run Pollock’s Toy Museum, the oldest toy museum in the country.
Once again, the streets will be closed to motor traffic, becoming a playground to delight adults and children alike. Expect street games, Punch and Judy, a magic show, free craft workshops, toy theatre and live music. There’ll also be local food stalls selling all sorts of stuff including homemade cakes and cups of tea.
Image: pollockstoymuseum.co.uk
Bloomsbury Festival
For ten days, Bloomsbury’s streets, parks, galleries, museums and academic institutions will host around 100 arts, science, and culture events.
Since 2006, Bloomsbury Festival has brought an incredible mix of arts, culture and science events to this vibrant quarter every October.
This year’s festival theme is Breathe. Events will focus on our sense of wellbeing, environment and air quality, while also covering self-expression and freedom of speech.
The packed programme includes performance, music, outdoor installations, theatre, exhibitions, tours and talks, and a Discovery Hub for schools and families.
If you’d like to take part in the 2022 festival, email: director@bloomsburyfestival.org.uk
Image from Bloomsbury Festival Facebook
Tensed Muscles
Join us for live music performed by
Maiden Lane’s Brownsilla and Boss B
augmented reality artwork by Steffi Klenz
Featuring beats by AJ Kwame and Music for Architecture
In the Spring of 2019 Maiden Lane rap artists Brownsilla and Boss B collaborated with photographic artist Steffi Klenz. As artists in residence at the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, they explored the histories of Maiden Lane, using maps, newspapers, court reports and images.
Weaving these stories with their own experiences of living and being in London, the artists reflect on what has been, and of its relevance to lives today. The resulting album of sounds and images presents a complex view of Maiden Lane, one of tension and frustration but also of confidence and optimism.
Animated elements of the album are presented through augmented reality in the Maiden Lane estate on walls next to and opposite the community centre. It can be seen using the Camden People’s Museum app, available through app stores.
The album is also available on Spotify
Fairy Tales of St Pancras Walk
A walk round St Pancras housing to see Gilbert Bayes ‘art in everyday life’, followed by an optional workshop in the museum.
Art in everyday life were the words of Gilbert Bayes, the artist who created fairy tales on walls, ships, birds nursery rhymes and saints' stories on drying posts on washing, for St Pancras Housing in the 1930s.
Somers Town has been called the 'fairy tale district' - join us for a guided walk and workshop around the history of this art - finials and lunettes.
Find out the folk tales... Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grimm, and saints stories St Nicholas, St Anthony...
Led by experienced Guide Steve McCarthy of Hidden London Walks.co.uk, we co-present a live tour, a visual feast, stories, and a mystery of their loss.
With local insights from people who live here, you have unusual access to unseen art in hidden courtyards.
We appreciate donations to contribute to our fund to campaign to replace the sadly damaged and missing finals. Three are to be replaced - the broken St Antony of Padua statuette and 2 finials; and further to that, to replace all missing finials to restore this district to its intended 'art in everyday life'!
For why shouldn't ordinary people have art?
Low cost options available.
Rooted Beings
‘Rooted Beings’ invites you to embark on a meditative reflection on the world of plants and fungi.
The exhibition considers what we might learn from plant behaviour, and the impacts of colonial expeditions on the exploitation of natural resources and indigenous knowledge.
You’ll see botanical archives from Wellcome Collection and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew displayed alongside works by artists Gözde İlkin, Ingela Ihrman and Joseca, with new commissions by Patricia Domínguez, Eduardo Navarro, RESOLVE Collective and Sop.
The Regent's Park Music Festival
The Regent’s Park Music Festival will bring alive the Bandstand with music every Saturday & Sunday afternoon starting June 18th (including Bank Holiday Monday on 29th August) to 25th September.
Programmes will be varied and include local Concert Bands, Jazz Big Bands, small groups, and Choirs. You can be there with family or friends, enjoying the music and the beautiful park surroundings.
More details on the performers can be found on www.regentsparkmusicfestival.org.uk
UPshoots
Enjoy free live music from up and coming performers at lunchtimes on the last two Thursdays and Fridays in August.
Once again, Small Green Shoots, a local creative consultancy is working with Urban Partners to support talented young artists and musicians.
Each day the sessions will feature three different performers, who’ll each play half hour sets at 12.30, 1pm and 1.30pm.
Since 2017, UPshoots has brought new music to new audiences and helped launch the careers of Mullally and Etta Bond.
We’ll update this page with more details as soon as we have them. Meanwhile, put the dates in your diary, so you don’t miss out on this feast of fresh musical talent.
(Image from Small Green Shoot's Facebook)
York Rise Street Party
The biggest annual block party in town, with music, food and drink, stalls, theatre and art.
Every year, York Rise and Dartmouth Park Road come to vibrant life with stalls, music, theatre and more. It’s the biggest annual neighbourhood get together in NW5, and everyone’s invited.