Peckham Festival (CIC) returns from 15-18th September with a long weekend of art, performances and activities for everyone. Created in 2016, the free event aims to support a more cohesive and diverse multi-generational community through the arts and celebrates the diverse creativity, culture and community of Peckham and beyond.
Festival events will be held across Peckham, with two of the main sites located at Copeland Park and Peckham Levels, creative hubs that were formerly a Victorian factory and multi storey car park.
The heartbeat of the festival is the family friendly Community Hub, where local community groups, charities and organisations offer free talks and workshops. Festival goers will have the chance to try new experiences and engage with local action groups. This year there will be a health and well-being element offering free fitness classes including Hip Hop Yoga and Pilates.
The ‘Made in Peckham’, open spaces event will see over a hundred local artists open up their homes, workshops and studios over two weekends this year, offering the public an intimate and unique insight into their work practices. Art forms range from fine art to sculpture; jewellery; ceramics; photography; print and furniture design.
The festival stage at Copeland Park will offer a variety of performances ranging from the Nunhead Community Choir and Rye Chapel reggae gospel band to the Peckham Chamber Orchestra; South London Youth Theatre; carnival performance group, Kinetika Bloco; drag and spoken word. Local DJ’s and some of South East London’s established bands will perform in the evenings.
One of the underlying themes of this year’s festival is sustainability. Peckham-based Electric Pedals will launch this year’s event with a bicycle-powered film screening outside at Copeland Park simultaneously promoting the value of electricity and cycling.
Copeland Gallery will feature ‘Life after Life’, curated by local artist Katrina Adams. By challenging a consumer, habitual society and culture in which goods and services create waste, the exhibition showcases works where artists are predominantly striving to find more sustainable ways to develop their practice and those of others including art pieces created during the pandemic when usual materials were hard to acquire and repurposing ‘lost’ & ‘found’ objects. Through their art, exhibiting artists ask visitors; “Is the future of art changing to help minimise its impact both socially and environmentally?”
Local sustainable mead producer, Gosnell’s Mead, who ferment their honey in Peckham will be bringing their mead garden to the festival and there’ll be a sustainable makers pop-up curated by local event organisers, Pexmas.
Peckham Festival could not exist without the support of local sponsors, which include Copeland Park, Peckham Levels, Future Strategy Club, Gosnell’s Mead and Truepenny’s or without the efforts of the festival volunteers. If you would like to join our festival team as a volunteer please contact oi@peckhamfestival.org
For more information see www.peckhamfestival.org