An initiative introduced by Sadiq Khan in 2017, The Mayor’s London Borough of Culture award offers over £1million of funding to the winning borough to host a range of cultural events, activities and initiatives over a whole year.
This is brilliant news for our tenants based in Croydon and the South London area as this year Croydon was named the London Borough of Culture.
Sadiq Khan set up the London Borough of Culture award to bring communities closer together and celebrate the unique and diverse culture of London, focusing on all areas of London that are sometimes overlooked for the more well-known areas of central London.
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Croydon – what’s on?
With 10 flagship cultural events and hundreds of community projects, Croydon’s ambitious programme will involve 20,000 participants, every school, 300 volunteers and 1,500 artists with over 250,000 audiences!
We’ve shared just a few of the amazing events below which are taking place throughout the year.
Liberty (FREE!) Festival – 1st-3rd September 2023
The Liberty Festival is the Mayor of London’s flagship disability arts festival that provides a platform for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists to perform and showcase their work. It has been produced by Drunken Chorus – a charity that curates inclusive and accessible festival, events and creative experiences. The festival takes place from the 1st-3rd September in and around Fairfield Halls and the Queen’s Gardens.
One of the many participants will be Club Soda who recently collaborated with us on our feedback event at Fairfield Halls in June (which you can read more about here). Club Soda is a charity based in Croydon that aims to provide accessible, affordable, social and creative opportunities for people with learning disabilities. Their amazing SODA crew DJs will be performing a silent disco set on 3rd September (more info here). The amazing dancers at SLiDE, who we also collaborated with at our recent feedback event, will also be performing on 3rd September at Queen’s Gardens.
The Inner Vision Quintet X Rachel Gadsden will also be performing, directed by composer Baluji Shrivastav OBE. The Quintet is a selected group of artists from the Inner Vision Orchestra, the world’s only professional ensemble of blind and visually impaired musicians. They will be playing a mix of genres and music from around the world. Whilst multi-award-winning visual artist and performer Rachel Gadsden will be painting to capture the music throughout the inner vision performance.
If you’re interested in exercise and fitness, India Morse and Leroy Elevates who you may recognise from Joe Wicks The Body Coach’s app, will be delivering a free HIIT workout session on Saturday 2nd September between 10.30 -11.30am. India is a deaf personal trainer who is breaking down barriers in the fitness industry and Leroy has a professional background in youth and community inclusion. This event promises to be a fun, high energy, accessible fitness session.
After the session, why not head over to the Dialogue Hub’s Mobile BSL Dialogue Cafe – the UK’s first British Sign Language (BSL) cafe – for a coffee or my personal favourite a hot chocolate. Before you go learn a little BSL to help you with your order – ordering in British Sign Language is encouraged to spark a conversation between visitors and their deaf or hard of hearing baristas. On the Dialogue Hub website, they have a great video for learning useful sign language before your visit.
Further information about the Liberty Festival can be found here.
SoDaDa event nights – October 2023 and February 2024
Alongside the Liberty Festival there are other accessible and inclusive events for Croydon residents to get involved with throughout the year.
Over the course of the next 6 months, with the help of funding from This is Croydon, Fuse (a collaboration between SLiDE, Club Soda and MOSS @ Turf Projects) will be hosting SoDaDa – event nights for inclusive music, dance and art – on 20th October 2023 and 2nd February 2024 at Fairfield Halls from 7pm – 10pm.
Entry is open only to those over 18 and tickets can be purchased on the door for £5 per person with a suggested donation of £2 for support workers, you can find more information here.
Pinocchio by SAVVY Theatre – 17th December 2023
SAVVY Theatre has been working with local groups Mind, the Southleigh (InMind) Community Centre and their Crisis Averted group to develop work based on the themes of journey and transformation. Using the classic story of Pinocchio as source material and inspiration, the project aims to re-tell the story, with Pinocchio learning that it is okay to be just who he is.
The performance will be delivered for one night only, on 17th December at Fairfield Halls. Perfect for an evening get together with family and friends just before Christmas. More information and tickets here.
#PartyingInPlainSight
For a full list of events running to celebrate Croydon as London’s Borough of culture, head here.
To find out more about Zetetick’s bustling operation in Croydon, click here.
