Whether you’re inside, or out, there’s plenty to do at this year’s Camberwell Arts Festival. Join an online dance company or get active outdoors with our unique Air-Obics class on Camberwell Green. There’s outdoor gardening galore, as well as online Open Gardens so you can enjoy local green spaces from your own home too.
Join an all-new, all-female dance company for young people aged 15-19. Members will work together to explore a range of dance styles through performance, devising and research. Over a year-long, online course you’ll have the chance to create a multimedia performance mixing both online and face-to-face elements.
SAT 26TH & SUN 27TH
Enter an online world of colour, texture and form as Camberwell artists open their studios online as well as in person. From painters to printers, ceramicists to sculptors, this is an opportunity to explore the eclectic world of Camberwell’s diverse local arts scene.
FROM 7PM
Join us for an evening of online films, responding to this year’s Camberwell Arts Festival theme. This includes a commissioned companion piece for Marble’s lockdown short, Outside In, and Piedad Seiquer’s Grief for a Time That Once Was.
7PM – 8.30PM
Art in the Park presents this online life drawing class, with 5, 10, and 15 minute poses by experienced life model Francesca. There will be experienced artists available to answer questions and provide ideas and instructions for how to draw each pose should you want any help.
7-8PM / EVERY WEDS FROM 9TH JUNE – 15TH JULY
Join rapper John Akinde, aka OSOM, and opera singer Themba Mvula for this exciting new collaboration between Theatre Peckham and English Touring Opera. Through five online workshops, and one live event, you’ll learn about rap and the operatic form of Gilbert & Sullivan.
FROM 7PM
Join this online life drawing class for everyone who wants to spend a chilled Wednesday evening creating art in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
7.15PM
If you’re interested in playwriting - whether you’re aiming to have your work performed or not – then this is the group for you. Actors and critics are also welcome too. Sessions are held fortnightly, via Zoom, and mix writing activities with readings from each other’s work.
FROM MIDDAY
The Camberwell Society’s virtual Open Gardens Day is back, with members sharing online videos and photographs of some of the wonderful gardens and green spaces that Camberwell has to offer.
11AM – MIDDAY
Imagine your own version of Sleeping Beauty in this unique online art class with Art in the Park for young people aged 5+. Through a combination of storytelling, drawing, collaboration and prop-making, you’ll discover things you might not know about this well-known fairy tale.
FROM 9AM
For those of you who can’t make it to Camberwell Green, we’re also launching a Digital Art Market on our opening day. Explore an affordable, curated selection of work by some of our favourite local artists and traders – and all from the comfort of your own home.
Miniature Worlds focuses on the smallest natural entities in order to celebrate their otherworldiness and intricacies, and encourage the viewer to take notice of the natural world and appreciate the complexity of our planet's ecosystems. Presented as a newspaper, Miniature Worlds invites local residents to download this online newspaper and transform their front windows into interactive gallery spaces.
Get playful with these pre-recorded drama workshops you can join at any time. Designed for children aged 1-3, and their adults, they use drama, singing, music, moving and props to explore creative play in the comfort of your own home.
In collaboration with the London Festival of Architecture, enter the surreal world of illustrator Agustin Coll’s witty architectural characters in this visual diary of the first few months of the Covid pandemic.
Bach Plus returns to St Giles Church to conclude the From Darkness to Light series. Two memorable concerts were held in December before lockdown caused the final installment to be postponed. Come and hear some of London's most exciting young string players in the uplifting conclusion to the series.
Barnie Emma and Taraneh Jahanpour lead a flight attendant-themed fitness class for all ages and abilities. No boarding passes required. Join us on Camberwell Green for some fun outdoor exercise and silliness.
2PM
Join the launch event for this new community demo-garden, focusing on agro-ecology, permaculture, food, and climate justice. The event will include information about the ideas behind the garden and its uses, an interactive discussion, and a plant swap.
Cook and eat Sunday lunch together in this fun, free and friendly food session for people living in Vassall and Coldharbour. You can also become a Food Hero, teaching others how to cook your favourite recipe (with your time and ingredients paid for).
Four UAL Camberwell masters' students lead a free outdoor art workshop, aiming to dismantle the various aspects of cultural mutations. Culture Queens Collective are Gemma Courtney-Davies, Shaila Ankolekar, Agnese Pulvirenti, and Ionna Kavanaga.
The artists at Warrior Studios launch this year's Open Studios weekend with a preview of work by participating artists. They will be joined by trumpet and synth duo WOOLFENDEN, performing live at 7.30pm.(@woolfendenmusic). Their Open Studios event will then continue on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th from 11 am - 6 pm.
11AM – 12.30PM FRIDAYS (TERM TIME)
There’s outdoor play and gardening fun at this weekly drop-in session, held every Friday during term time by Vassall Family Engagement Team, Healthy Living Platform and Liz Atkinson Children's Centre.
9.30AM – 1PM
Develop your gardening skills during a relaxing session at one of London’s most beautiful parks. You’ll be helping to grow plants for local groups and greening the park.
10AM
Join a post-lockdown, litter-picking party and help a small, friendly group of volunteers care for this beautiful local park. It’s a great way to stretch your legs and meet your neighbours, as well as show some love for your local environment.
5PM – 7PM
Join The Art Assassins - a group of young people, aged between 14-20 years old, who meet every Tuesday at the South London Gallery. Together, they work with artists, designers and filmmakers to create a programme of events for other young people and a wider audience.
MON & WEDS FROM JUNE TO JULY
Take inspiration from the flora and fauna in Myatt’s Fields Park in this free workshop programme for people aged 50+. These twice-weekly workshops run until 29th July, with opportunities to develop creative writing projects to share with local audiences.
9.30AM –11.30AM MONS & WEDS (TERM TIME)
This free, drop-in, term-time Nature Camp is run by the Mulberry Outdoor Preschool provides outdoor, nature-based activities – and lots of opportunities to meet other children and parents.
A follow-up to a previous installation called Inside Out at The Paxton in Gipsy Hill, Phil has constructed 3 pyramids laid on their sides on which to suspend screens. The screens are arranged as if mirrored, not unlike a butterfly’s wings, which when opening and closing while at rest turn the inside of their wings outside. This is referred to in part of the projection.
2PM & 4PM
After being cut short last Christmas, due to lockdown, Longfield Hall is once again hosting The Insect Circus – a magical world inviting you to forget reality and immerse yourself in the strange and beautiful world of insects.
2.00 - 2.45PM & 3.15 – 4.00PM
Make your own family carnival float with artist Natalie Zervou-Kerruish, using bells, balls, sticks, paper, foil, ribbon and tape to build and decorate your float in a way that symbolises your family or community.
Discover a unique urban oasis, hidden inside Burgess Park – sharing skills is at the heart of this incredible community garden so why not join them for a Sunday gardening session? No experience necessary.
Exploring light and mood in nature, Camilla’s paintings offer a quiet space for escape and contemplation. Open both weekends of the festival, come and explore her studio and paintings. Advance booking is essential.
An exhibition featuring Laura Willis, Joe Davis, Natasha Godfrey, and Will Powell - local illustrators based around Camberwell. Following the festival theme of Inside Out, each artist takes a different interpretation in their unique style. You can find prints by all the artists in-store.
10AM - 5PM
The Camberwell Arts Market is back with 12 socially-distanced art stalls, 6 farmers’ market stalls and 1 great reason to get out onto Camberwell Green!
10AM & 11.30AM
Urban Canopy are leading gardening sessions for everyone, working in small groups to weed, plant and keep Ruskin Park beautiful.
We spend most of our time indoors and our experience of light plays a fundamental role in managing stress and anxiety. Exploring this, Henry Welch exhibits two of his lampshade designs through the window of 54 Camberwell Green. Each design is impeccably finished and handmade with a high level of craftsmanship and respect for the material.
Discover Camberwell's newest community green space - a food forest demo garden, created by SLUG Unit in 2020 and showcasing a range of agroecology and permaculture techniques.
Exhibited on the railings outside Denmark Hill station, this outdoor portrait gallery features 20 people who have had to shield during the past year. Some are still shielding, some are now living a more 'normal' life once again. Julia Hawkins moving portrait series is an opportunity to share their stories and for them to be seen in public, after so many months of having to hide away, out of sight.
Celebrating Camberwell’s outdoor public spaces – which have been a lifeline for many during the pandemic – this textile installation also features puppies playing (another lockdown phenomenon) and populations of parakeets. Now almost as common a sight as squirrels in London, they give us a small glimpse of the lands outside South East London that we hope to visit again one day soon…
American artist Christina Quarles creates surreal and deliberately ambiguous images of bodies that seem barely contained by the frame of the canvas.
Ufuoma Essi, the South London Gallery’s 10th Postgraduate Artist in Residence, is a video artist and filmmaker. Her new film work, From Where We Land, examines second-generation Black British women and their relationship with identity, feelings of cultural displacement, and their relationship to Britain.
Rebecca Griffiths’ exhibition HARDWARE (part of Camberwell Arts Festival) will be situated in the window of Camberwell Superstore, a well known DIY shop on Camberwell Church Street. The ceramic sculptures take the form of utilitarian objects and reflect upon the quiet solace of labour and craft during times of forced isolation.
Led by Debbie Allen, Southwark Park, and local horticulturalists, 10 local community groups have transformed trees on Camberwell Green, giving them a colourful make-over for the Camberwell Arts Festival.
It’s great to have them back! Their first exhibition since lockdown invites Pelican legend, Jonathan Allen, to remind us what's important in life.
SAT 26TH & SUN 27TH
Step into a world of colour and creativity as Camberwell's artists open their doors once more for our annual Open Studios event. It's an opportunity to meet local artists in person, in Covid-safe conditions, and discover the extraordinary array of creativity to be found in this inspirational London neighbourhood.