What's On - Love Camden
What's On
Camden events, exhibitions, arts and culture.
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.
Books and Beyond
Come and join Camden’s online book club as we explore contemporary Black significant authors
TUESDAY 11TH OCTOBER
12.30pm - 1.30pm
The Bluest Eye, By Toni Morrison
Book Club discussion and readings from Toni Morrisons iconic first novel ‘The Bluest Eye’ - a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity
TUESDAY 8TH NOVEMBER
6.30PM - 7.30PM
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Discussion and readings from this beautiful uplifting yet heart-breaking story of a young black couple
Black Beautiful
An evening exploring mental health through the context of black thought. Enjoy poetry and spoken word celebrating black history
Open mic on the evening.
Suggested donation £5
100% of donations go to supporting local charities and social causes.
In Collaboation with CAMDEN COUNCIL, the HELLO BEAUTIFUL FOUNDATION (cancer prevention) and the BLACK FREEZE initiative (mobilizing black spending for positive social change).
King's Cross: Past Present and Future - An Overview and Tour
Take a look at a new model of the development to learn about the historic 67 acre site. Followed by a walking tour to discover the story of the Goods Yard and the buildings from the industrial era that have been refurbished and reused to create a new vibrant destination.
Understand how the site has been transformed from an underused industrial wasteland into an exciting new cultural destination to live, work and play.
Explore the new homes, shops, offices, galleries, bars, restaurants, open spaces, schools, and universities; as well as looking at sustainability, estate management and community.
Hear about how all these things come together at King’s Cross to make a diverse, dynamic and successful community – a vibrant place that’s alive with people seven days a week.
Enough Words: Spoken Word Workshops
Over four Wednesday evenings in October, work with I Am Irish's team of skilled spoken word artists to create your own work to be performed at the London Irish Centre on the final evening to an invited audience of friends and family. Final pieces will be recorded to be shared across our social media platforms. No experience needed.
The workshops are open to all members of the public. We particularly welcome those from interracial families of Irish descent and the global majority who may not have been to an event at the Irish Centre before.
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
Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital
Tiny Traces presents a rich history of London life from 1739-1820, a key period in Britain’s colonial past. Follow the stories of more than a dozen children from the African and Asian diasporas through personal items, physical artefacts, works of art and archival documents.
Visitors can also explore the circumstances surrounding their admission to the Hospital, including the parents’ lives, the Hospital’s ties to Empire and the wider picture of colonial Britain.
Running as a parallel thread throughout the exhibition, works of art from leading contemporary artists, including Zarina Bhimji and Hew Locke, form a dialogue with the historic narratives. These works enable visitors to explore the many emotions arising from the archive, and ask questions about the past, present and future.
Supper Club
Join us for Supper Clubs during Black History Season celebrating some of the best food Camden has to offer
*All dates are 7pm - 10pm
Tuesday 18th October
Vibe n Go Pop Up
Local young resident Roujai Lestrade-lake preps a ‘Vibe an Go ‘ pop up restaurant in the heart of Kentish Town
The Tapping Admiral Pub, 77 Castle Street, NW1 8SU
Wednesday 26th October
Rogers Kitchen
Contemporary Caribbean Cuisine created with ingenuity and passion by Chef Roger Shakes ( previous Head Chef of Mango Rooms)
Rogers Kitchen, 71 Camden Road, NW1 9EU
Wednesday 2nd November
Cottons
A Camden BHS supper club menu at one of London’s leading Caribbean restaurants
Cottons Restaurant 55 Chalk Farm Road, Camden Town, NW1 8AN
Wednesday 16th November
Ma Petite Jamaica
A delicious Jamaican menu in a vibey bar restaurant in central Camden Town
Ma Petite Jamaica, 4 Inverness Street, Camden Town, NW1 7HJ
The Drum Driver
An outdoor masterclass African Drumming workshop with Master Drummer Abass Dodoo
Join Abass and play drum or just enjoy the dancing beats he brings for vibes and well - being
Free and open to all!
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.
Your home is one place you have control over: how it looks, how it feels and how it functions. By using interior design and decorating intentionally it’s possible for you to create a space where you can both express your interior personality and improve your wellbeing.
Why is this important?
Because the outside world seems to be getting crazier by the day. Daily news delivers information which we have little to no control over. I’ve thrown my hands up in the air as I ask what’s next.
I’d like to ask you when you’re at home after a day’s work, how do you feel? As you look around your place, what emotions are present for you? Does your interior decor make you feel good, or does it leave you feeling flat?
In this evening workshop I’ll be sharing the important questions to ask yourself before you make any interior changes, practical tips on how to express your interior personality and suggestions for how to feel better in your space.
Join me, Interior Designer, Sharon Simpson on the 3rd November at The Living Room, Camden from 6.30pm
The World Reimagined: Walking Tour
Go on a Journey of Discovery through our shared history, present and future.
On the tour we’ll hear stories about the woman who worked to uplift her community in the face of racist hostility by celebrating their culture through music and dance; an enslaved woman who rose up to break free from her oppressors and became a key abolitionist; a disabled veteran of the Royal Navy who busked to make a living for himself and his family; the free Black American woman who travelled to Britain to foster support for the abolition campaign to end slavery in the US; the 18th century man-about-town, musician and shopkeeper who became the first Black person to vote in a British general election and many more…
The World Reimagined
The World Reimagined will see trails of over 100 large globe structures in seven cities across the UK from 13 August – 31 October 2022. The sculptures will be created by artists to bring to life the reality and impact of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans and invite the public to engage with the dialogue and actions of making racial justice a reality.
All artists will create globes responding to the themes ranging from ‘Mother Africa’ and ‘The Reality of Being Enslaved’ to ‘Still We Rise’ and ‘Expanding Soul’. Each globe will enable the public to experience, discover and be inspired by art as well as present the opportunity to be part of the discourse around racial justice and what it means to be British.
Here in Camden, eleven artists have each created a globe in response to this challenge. We hope these artworks will make people think again and spark debate. Let’s talk about our shared history, racial justice, and what it means to be British. With recent events in mind, there’s no time like the present…
LuYang NetiNeti
This exhibition will feature the world premiere of a new Zabludowicz Collection commission, alongside multiple immersive moving image installations, an interactive arcade gaming space, and a screening room presenting the ‘greatest hits’ of the artist’s videos from across the last decade. Visitors will be invited to step into the worlds LuYang creates.
LuYang’s work destabilises the divisions between past and future, human and machine, and life and death, reflected in the title of the exhibition, which incorporates the Sanskrit expression ‘Neti Neti’, meaning “not this, not that”, or “neither this, nor that”. Immersed in the cultures of anime, video games and sci-fi, the artist’s wildly engaging and darkly humorous projects are all-consuming in their visual and sonic intensity. They combine aspects of traditional spiritual belief with motifs from science and medicine to investigate the mysteries and mechanics of the human body and mind.
In the Air
In the Air explores our relationship with the air around us. Moving freely across borders and through bodies, air is both vital to our existence and a threat to our health.
The exhibition explores the relationship between the air and earth, from 3.5-billion-year-old fossilised bacteria that first introduced oxygen into the atmosphere to delicate porcelain sculptures of the glaciers that provide a record of the air and our impact on it. It charts the history of activism against pollution from 17th-century accounts of coal smoke in London to contemporary protests against levels of toxic air that disproportionately impact communities of colour in our cities. Immersive and imaginative film installations introduce us to magnified versions of the particles that occupy our air; reveal the ways that air is weaponised across the world – but also reconnect us to the healing properties of fresh air.
Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth
When it comes to making myths, Alexander the Great’s story has it all.
He built an empire that stretched across the world. Rode across the sky on a flying chariot. And descended to the bottom of the sea in a glass bell.
Or did he?
Piece together an epic tale 2,000 years in the telling. From astrological clay tablets, ancient papyri, and medieval manuscripts, to Hollywood and Bollywood movies and cutting-edge videogames, our major exhibition crosses continents to explore the fantastical stories that turned legacy into legend.
Pharaoh, prophet, philosopher. European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have all moulded Alexander into the fictional hero they want him to be. And today artists and storytellers alike are still trying to reimagine the man and his myth. Who was he really? You’ll have to decide for yourself.
Camden Black Workers Group: 40th Anniversary Gala
CBWG 40th Anniversary celebration, this is an evening not to be missed, an inspiring and informative evening on how Camden Black workers group were born into existence.
You will be inspired by the journeys of the past, middle and present chairs of Camden Black workers. Entertained by live music that you can sing along and dance to.
Indulge in a 2 course Caribbean and African cuisine.
Enjoy the awards ceremony and our finale Lovers Rock Singer Paulette Tajah. singing some of her favorite hits
Then enjoy the long awaited after party, yes party in style.
It's an evening not to be missed.
Queer Britain
Co-founded in 2018 by Joseph Galliano, Queer Britain now has its first physical home in King’s Cross. The museum is a celebration of queer culture, providing an insight into the communities rich and complex histories.
The space is free entry and open to everyone to discover the stories and experiences of LGBTQ+ people throughout the UK and beyond, offering a dedicated space for the culture to be preserved, explored and celebrated.