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You’ll encounter understandable degrees of gloom right now regarding the state of London’s cultural mojo… and yet.

The squeeze is very real, whether you’re a struggling venue, an underpaid creative, or a seemingly priced-out newcomer… and yet.

And it’s absolutely right to shout loudly and repeatedly that this is wrong, to keep pressure on those in power, reminding them that we sideline cultural production at our peril, standing firm amidst the clamour of all the other imperatives, from defence to the NHS.

And yet.

Scratch just beneath the battered surface and you’ll soon find that our collective creativity remains as potent as ever, regardless.

Hard times are also incubators of innovation. It might not be clear yet, but new types of creative thinking and expression will always fight back because, despite the wanton disruption our tech overlords may reap, us humans still basically like gathering, dancing, losing ourselves and sharing experiences - and probably with more urgency and purpose than ever before.

This Thursday sees the start of the three-day AVA London Festival, now the leading music, culture, visual arts festival and conference in the UK. The daytime events take place at The British Library and across Euston Rd at The Standard, with after dark parties spreading out across town to HERE at Outernet, Hackney’s EartH and The Cause in Tottenham.

If you’re in need of a reminder of why, despite the challenges, people are still very much discovering the full joy and inspiration of creating music and art and throwing parties, or looking to find optimism in how all the doom and gloom can be harnessed for something better, you should come along.

You’ll hear electronic heroes Underworld speak on the 30th anniversary of ‘Born Slippy’, Jarvis Cocker discuss his personal journey from biophobia (a fear of nature) to connection with the natural world, and genre-bending R&B soprano FKA Twigs in conversation with Pxssy Palace founder and member of the Mayor’s new Nightlife Taskforce, Nadine Noor.

Full conference and party line-ups, plus tickets to day and night events can all be found here.  

AVA started in Belfast a decade ago, before setting up in London and progressing from a single venue to taking over the mighty Printworks, before settling at the British Library.

“Printworks was great as it gave us the chance to blow people's minds with a space that transformed from a seated conference by day, into a full-on rave at night,” says AVA’s Conor McTernan.

“When it closed, we felt that being based in King's Cross was ideal for us, as it is so well connected to both the rest of the UK, and Europe. It's surrounded by world-class venues like KOKO and HERE, and then a friend showed us the space at the British Library and we knew we'd found our perfect home for the daytime events, too.”

Read this week’s full Camdenist interview with Conor here.

Meanwhile, further optimism about London’s cultural landscape dropped this week from the people behind KERB food markets and Broadwick Group, who ran AVA’s former home, the Printworks music venue, and continue to be central to the redevelopment of Canada Water.

From next month, they will operate Corner Corner, a huge new food hall, vertical farm and experimental live music venue inside Canada Water’s defunct 1980s shopping centre. “What makes this project special is the transformation of a former high street store into a vibrant cultural hub,” says Broadwick’s Simeon Aldred. “This reimagining of space is a key element of our mission.”

Having just started another season of 15k capacity dance events inside the former Tottenham IKEA, Simeon and his team are the experts in carving out new cultural spaces by working with the usually destructive forces and finances of urban redevelopment.

Their ongoing work is the ideal example of the new thinking that today’s challenges to the cultural landscape necessitate. Bringing together the engines of street food, low carbon indoor farming and live performance offers further rays of hope to another beleaguered sector - what the hell to do with our high streets.

It might feel grim out there at times, but there’s plenty going on that should excite, or at least reassure you that our cultural mojo is busy adapting. The passion simply will not be swept away.

📊 This week’s one-click poll

Last week, we discussed the new traffic free Camden High Street proposals, asked the question: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are here to stay, but what do you really think of them?

Love them (50)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 60%

Hate them (25)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 30%

Kinda indifferent
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 10%

and some of your (many!) comments:

“LTNs are safer for kids & more pleasant for residents. We've had them for 50plus years on a smaller scale anyway. Drawbacks are greatly exaggerated. Jams are caused by too many vehicles, not LTNs.”

“I can’t help feeling the economically better off benefit hugely due to quiet, empty streets. Whilst those who live on the main/larger roads where there tends to be cheap/low cost housing, estates etc suffer with the pollution and traffic jams. I understand air pollution has decreased but maybe a breakdown by precise locations rather than borough wide would give a more accurate picture.”

”“As always, some of them are very welcome, but others are just plain stupid. Camden never seem to do a consultation and then decide NOT to do what they propose (I think this is because their questions have a bias) so this leads me not to bother making comment. I feel unheard.”

”“The gridlocked pollution spilling out around the no go streets are a joke, and getting from A to B, in Camden for example, now involves driving through X, Y, and Z. Triple the pollution produced, triple the exasperation, and nobody waters the flowers in the wooden box barriers.”

“Low traffic neighbourhoods are irrelevant given Camden’s campaign to eradicate cars /motorcycles / anything that has propulsion”

“Absolutely love 'em. It's one of those things where people don't understand it 'till they have it- and then they'll fight tooth and nail to keep it. Transplanting over from Hackney's De Beauvoir neighbourhood, with its historic LTN, all I can say is: everyone deserves to live in one. I'll take kids feeling safe to play in the streets over "motorists rights" any day.”

“As a motorist as was initially against them (and I still think that residents should be allowed to cross their own LTN) but now I can really see the benefit for local people (including me). Councils do need to get a lot smarter about how they are implemented though.”

”everyone moans about traffic but have no solutions - we need to support things like LTN which will drive habit change”

“So much safer and better for the air. I am a huge fan!”

FOOD & DRINK

Loads of good news about local boozers

🍺 Classic Camden watering hole The Lord Stanley has been closed for a bit of a refresh of late, and much-missed in the process, but they’ve just announced a grand reopening party on Thurs 20th Mar from 5pm.

🍺 The people behind Kentish Town’s fabulous no frills ‘beer, cider, meat’ pub The Southampton Arms are about to reopen a long-shuttered boozer over in Canonbury. The Pocket will follow a similar format of quality drinks, homemade pies, British cheese and an old piano for proper knees-ups. It opens 20th Mar.

🍺 Also in Islington, The Sekforde has been saved from closure after the Council dropped threatened restrictions to its license following a handful of complaints from grumpy residents who moved next door to a 200-year old public house yet somehow expected silence. Finally such victories for the vast majority of Londoners seem to be landing more regularly - the message about what we stand to lose has begun to cut through with the committees.

🍺 Primrose Hill’s 170-year-old The Engineer reopens on April 4th after its own major refurb. It follows a similar spruce-up break last month at nearby celeb fave The Queen’s.

🍺 Revitalised backstreet boozer The Lord Southampton is going great guns on its new food menus, with affordable pub classics on a daily basis and a big focus on destination roasts on Sundays. Head over there as it’s fantastic.

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MORE CAMDEN CULTURE

🐂 Live music returns to the Bull & Gate

Kentish Town’s music history has taken many twists and turns over decades, with the latest one being the return of regular live music to the once famous ‘toilet circuit’ gig pub, the Bull & Gate.

It’s now the new home for the long-standing Monday night jazz session that was, until last month, hosted just over the road. After a turbulent handful of years that saw ‘Jazz at The Oxford’ firstly uprooted to The Assembly House, then renamed Jazz at The Parakeet, in honour of its rebranded original home, they’ve now settled, possibly wisely, on Jazz in Kentish Town.

The new weekly events continue this Mon 17th Mar with American bassist, vocalist and composer Devon Gates reunites with friends from the UK jazz scene (she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in 2023), sharing original compositions and improvisations from her wide-ranging blend of jazz, chamber, and soul influences.

The venue, the pub’s plush upstairs Boulogne Bar, is a far cry from the sweat-drenched rock madness that the downstairs back room was famous for in the 80s, 90s and 00s. That was where the likes of Blur, Suede, Jesus Jones, Pop Will Eat Itself, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, The Pogues, The Housemartins, PJ Harvey, Ash, The Darkness, The Libertines, Muse, Manic Street Preachers and Keane cut their teeth.

But live music ended at the pub when it was given a swanky refurb as a food-focused joint (admittedly, it’s still the last beer stop for legions of music fans before a gig at The Forum, though). The Boulogne Bar did, however, famously feature in this Taylor Swift video. Live jazz on a Monday revives the pub’s frankly bonkers musical history in a whole new way, so long may it last.

STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

🕳️ Revealing the hidden catacombs and tunnels beneath Camden

📍 Camdenist Guest Editor: David Aaronovitch on being local while thinking global

🤯 Camdenist Guest Editor Ruby Wax on why we are out of our minds

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