What a year! From the delivery of the massive 10 metre Mark Titchner artwork ‘Dream the World Anew’ lifted high above Tower Bridge via a partnership with Tower Bridge Court developers Fore Partnership, to delicate paper bowls by Debra Shipley shown at Southwark Cathedral as part of Totally Thames Festival 2023, this has been a brilliant year of arts collaborations for Team London Bridge - Ellie Beedham, Director of Arts.

Bermondsey Street Festival

It’s always a pleasure to take part in the annual Bermondsey Street Festival. This year Team London Bridge provided arts content including commissioning The Poetry Takeaway (a take-away van of poets providing personalised verses on tap!) and coordinated pop-up activities by the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garrett and Florence Nightingale museums. We also supported the street clean up after a busy and fun day - as always in bubbly SE1.

Climate Change Initiatives

We developed climate change initiatives including the Climate Lab – ‘The Pause’ created with Zena Edwards, Theatre de Complicité and Apples and Snakes.The workshop provided a space for artists, producers and creatives to come together and consider the moment we find our selves in and how we might respond.

Talks & Discussions

Many important discussions were had, including the brilliant Cityscape Director Darryl Moore in conversation with George Hudson and Humaria Akram from BBC Gardener’s Question Time speaking about gardening for climate change. Watch the film here.

Dance Umbrella

We supported Dance Umbrella Festival to put on talks and workshops including ReWorking Rhythms : a discussion about creative access and processes. It examined what is given time and how those decisions affect or limit what is made, seen and valued. We also co-presented a new sold out show for 3-5 year olds called ‘Skydiver’ with the Unicorn theatre as part of Little Big Dance consortium for Dance Umbrella Festival.

Supporting poetry

Our commissioning included 11 new pieces of poetry across the year – a great range of talent and voices were shown on digital screens across the area.

Public Art

We created 2 new temporary artworks for the public realm – the uplifting ‘Joy Bomb 2’ by Amy Broch in Western Arcade at London Bridge station and Mark Titchner’s statement piece at Tower Bridge ‘Dream the World Anew ‘ – a call to action to our neighbourhood to think differently and change behaviours in support of sustainable green futures. Just imagine what might be possible if we all channelled our collective energies.

Performances At The Scoop

The Scoop and Summer by the River festival included two of our major events –Naz Choudhury’s exuberant ‘Bollywood Spectacular: A music and dance festival’ for Make Music Day 2023 as well as the smash hit HipHop Weekender with Fiya House crew and Dickson Mbi and Brooke Milliner. Both incredible events were packed with extraordinary dance and music and filled with community passion and participation.

Nature Encounters

The new Nature Encounters programme – think Forest School for adults - was launched with local teacher and environmental artist Kay Walsh offering participants mindful arts activities to reconnect with biodiversity and took place in some of the special green spaces around London Bridge including Gibbons Rents.

Totally Thames Festival

We supported a new month-long large scale photography exhibition by Henry Reichhold at London Bridge station featuring the extraordinary architecture of London Bridge and Tower Bridge and highlighting active travel. One of his previous photographic pieces we showed at the station - a montage for the Queen’s Jubilee has now been installed at Heathrow airport.

A packed week-long programme of Team London Bridge programmed activities for Thames Festival included local walks, pop-up card making, mudlarking talks plus a pivotal month-long exhibition by environmental artist Irma Isara called ‘Tidal Traces’ – consisted of new fine art works, video art works and talks looking at the science and debris of the Thames presented in collaboration with The Old Operating Museum and Herb Garrett. See film here.

Medi-Culture Festival

The Mediculture festival goes from strength to strength with comedy nights, historical talks, performances and sewing all part the rich offer. The last iteration included a special workshop series and performance dedicated to Keats by the outstanding writer and performer John Hegley at Guys Chapel, Kings College. See film here.

In a Field by a Bridge

The new ‘In a Field By a Bridge’ festival was launched with Wayne Hemingway MBE with Team London Bridge and Potters Fields Park Management Trust as major partners. Hundreds of local organisations and individuals took part trading, cooking, entertaining the audiences all placing low impact living at the heart of their offer. All contributors were selected for their green practices, sustainable supply lines and low impact productions. They completed carbon monitoring feedback proving the footprint of this festival was approximately 2.1 tonnes of CO2e for 76 traders and artist groups versus a typical festival uses approximately 162,000 tonnes of CO2e. Listed as one of the ‘Top 10 Free festivals’ The Guardian and gaining extensive media coverage including TV.

See our partners and programme here

To become a partner and get involved in London Bridge arts activities please get in touch.

Arts and Culture Round Up 2023