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This week’s guest editor is the in-demand local artist Caroline Chinawke, founder of Camden Black Creatives. We’re throwing an exclusive art and design showcase party with her, set in the exciting new Camden Goods Yard development on Thursday 21st November.

It’s an opportunity to see more of Caroline’s stunning art up close and personal, discover more about the new homes and neighbourhood taking shape at the historic Camden Goods Yard site, and to hear from a panel of experts where the worlds of fashion, art and interior design happily collide.

Read on for info on how you can get hold of very limited free invites to the event…

Camdenist Guest Editor: Caroline Chinakwe

In late 2019, I’d made the decision to transition from my 20-year career in fashion to becoming a full time artist, with a plan to launch in 2020. But with the Covid lockdowns, and then George Floyd was murdered, everything changed.

Primarily, 2020 changed the meaning of my work. It made me more of an advocate for culture and social justice, and taught me to look at my art differently, and discover who I wanted to be as a creative.

Coming from the world of fashion, I was very much focused on clothes and looking good, but that time taught me to look deeply at myself and begin to see art as a tool for bringing awareness to important issues.

I've lived in Camden since I was 16, went to Quintin Kynaston School (now Harris Academy), had three children here and they've all gone to school in the borough, too. But until then, a lot of my fashion work had taken me to East London. Covid meant we were all faced with staying local, and it was then that I realised I didn’t know much about my borough when it came to work.

I did some lockdown research and discovered that there were over 100 galleries in Camden and it was known as ‘the arts borough’, but very few of these were representing Black local artists of any Black artist at all, so I thought; let’s do something.

Camden is a very diverse borough, but it’s also very expensive, so we began looking at empty properties and supporting creatives from black and all other kinds of marginialised backgrounds to access spaces for their work.

What really struck me over the crisis of 2020 was how important the creative industries were shown to be for people’s minds, souls and mental heath generally. People were drawn to decorate their homes, listen to music and I found that I sold a lot of art. My first piece went to a buyer based in Camden.

Now the world has opened up, my mission is to showcase the culture in different places, too. I did a pop-up in Tottenham Court Rd last year and found I was selling a lot of art prints, t-shirts and scarves to people from the UAE. So this week I’m off to Dubai for the first time, and I’ve also taken Camden Black Creatives to the States and talked about what we aimed to do in terms of collaborating with Black creatives from all over the diaspora.

With the black culture, people see it all as one, but we’re all so different. From black Americans to the whole diversity of the African continent, or the Brits to the Caribbeans, there’s such a huge divide. I’m keen to look at how we collaborate and come together more, uniting as we did over the challenges of 2020.

Starting out, I didn’t know how I would fit into the art world, as I was never intending on being a fine artist, creating work to be sold for millions. My vision was to create a lifestyle brand people could relate to, find beauty in, and would like to display in their homes, offices, or wherever.

So that also always included having merch in a fashion line, and we’re launching the homewares – think brightly upholstered chairs, wallpapers etc – early next year. Coming from fashion, I also looked at brand collaborations, and that can be anything from makeup and haircare brands, to drinks or car brands, I’m open to whatever can get the images out there.

I’ve been talking to Camden Goods Yard about offering a different type of home furnishing for their new apartments, designs that are little bit more daring than the beiges and natural creams people normally go for. Prints and fabrics for people that want something bright and bold decorating their new homes.

The inspiration for the art may be proudly African in origin, but it’s also very definitely a product of Camden. I heard the other day that Camden is the most mixed-race borough in London, which I never knew. I think the cross-cultural love of music that draws people here has a lot to do with it. Whether its ska or reggae, rock or pop, music bridges cultural divides, right? It doesn’t matter where you’re from, when the music is played, people unite in their joy.

For me, Camden has the most diverse culture and also diversity of self-expression. There is nowhere else like it. Music has a way of bringing out your inner personality, creativity and style, and living in Camden has allowed me to do that. It’s what we’re doing with our work at Camden Black Creatives now, too. I hope you’ll come along to Camden Goods Yard to see for yourself.

Caroline will speak and show a selection of her art at the event on November 21st. See below to for how to get yourself invited. Her pieces can then be seen on display at the Camden Goods Yard Marketing Suite until 6th Dec.

📊 This week's poll - get tickets for our exclusive night of art, fashion & interior design

Caroline Chinakwe will join a panel of other fashion, design and art experts from the borough at an exclusive event hosted at Camden Goods Yard next Thursday.

You’ll also hear from Amy Tsang, Head of Europe at the King’s Cross-base sustainable fashion and textile tech hub The Mills Fabrica and Will Jennings, visual artist and curator from Hypha Studios, which turns empty office spaces as galleries for emerging artists, based in Euston.

The panel will be chaired by neuroscientist and local resident Daniel Glaser, of the Royal Institution.

Tickets to attend are very limited, but we have 10 pairs reserved especially for Camdenist readers. Just vote in today’s poll and leave us a comment after voting - we'll pick the winners and be in contact by email early next week...

MORE ART

A brand new local art fair debuts this weekend

The new Highgate Art Fair will showcase the exception work of thoughtfully curated contemporary artists, galleries and collectives. In the first of what is hoped to be an annual event this Sat & Sun, 9th & 10th Nov at Highgate Primary School, you’ll be able to enjoy, and buy prints and originals from renowned artists with a local connection, such as 60s album supremo Storm Thorgerson (above) through to up-and-coming newcomers, too.

🌊 There's also art up on Hampstead Heath this Saturday (9th) as Oliver Yu Chan presents the Oliver-ism Artshow at the lovely Lido Cafe, where you can explore his paintings of the Heath in all its intricate beauty.

🖌️ Nothing Lasts Longer Than a Brief Moment explores the concepts of time and existence, suggesting that no matter how significant or eternal something may feel in the present, it will inevitably be reduced to a memory or a past event. It features the work of street artist Cleon, running at Camden Open Air Gallery until 24th Nov.

FOOD & DRINK

Top brunch opening in Kentish Town

🍳 Nottingham’s popular speciality brunch and coffee spot Lilac Eatery have just opened their first London outpost, taking over the former Saint Espresso in Kentish Town and bringing superior eggs, avo and the rest to the good people of NW5.

🍕 Meanwhile, their K-Town neighbours at Italian sourdough import Berbere Pizzeria have announced they will be opening a new branch down at Tottenham Court Rd’s Outernet next month. Ahead of that, check their special collaboration with Spain’s Can Pizza on Nov 25th.

🍺 We were down at Warren Street's Prince of Wales Feathers last week for their grand reopening after a nice spruce-up. It’s one of those blink and you’d miss it pubs on the fringes of the West End that’s actually got a local local following, meaning the vibes were super-friendly on the night, and there’s even a nice revamped roof terrace offering respite from the liveliness downstairs.

⛪ After a bit of work that needed to be done on the crypt, church-based craft beer enthusiasts St Mary’s Brewery are holding a reopening bash on Saturday night, 9th Nov, with beer tasting, food, live music and much celebration at their return, very well timed ahead of Christmas.

🥐 The sad and empty canalside former home of posh deli Melrose & Morgan in Primrose Hill will soon be the latest local branch of Gail’s bakery. Following the media circus that recently met plans for a Gail’s in Walthamstow, Camden New Journal has been out speaking to P-Hill locals to see what the word on their enviable streets is about the arrival of a chain into the area’s otherwise fairly independent coffee and cake scene.

🍻 Head to King’s Cross and the Babel Beerhouse on Monday 11th Nov for a special evening with lifelong local Frank Portinari, as he explores the dark side of Camden, with true stores from the area’s shadowy past.

Camdenist Culture Campaign Update

Interesting to see this week that a petition has been going great guns out East, calling on the populist Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, to buy Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and save this cultural gem from threat of closure.

It’s a similar idea of directly asking a Council to intervene in the cultural offering on it’s high streets as our own callout to Camden Council, asking them consider our plan for how they can help realise Kentish Town’s long-promised cinema dreams. We’re still waiting for a meeting, and the change-of-use clock is now ticking…!

MUSIC

🎵 So many experienced musicians to pick from

🧢 Celebrate 40 years of the godfather of house, Todd Terry tonight, Friday Nov 8th, when he swing into town to play a special DJ set at The Jazz Cafe.

🎸Saturday (9th) sees Paris-based American/French rock-garage-gypsy-punk-psych group The Shazzams prowl through their high energy set upstairs and the MAP Cafe, with support from local ethereal space-pop outfit Temporal Comet.

🎤 Acclaimed singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt plans a rare Sunday session at Lafayette in King's Cross, Sun 10th Nov, as part of his current UK tour.

🎻 Join old friends James Delarre & Saul Rose who are known for their warmth and exquisitely delivered traditional tunes and songs, and have recently reunited on the stage with a perfectly balanced live set of folk at The Green Note, Monday 11th Nov.

STAGE

🎭 Voila! Risk-taking theatre hits town

Check out The Cockpit’s annual fiesta of exciting genre-busting new work at the Voila! Theatre Festival, encouraging artists to take risks through November (until the 24th) at various venues across London. This Sunday (10th) Migrant Shakespeare sees the culturally marginalised take on the bard, migrating him into a range of surprising alien situations at Upstairs at the Gatehouse.

🚬 Join Cass, drifter and terminal layabout, in Bloody Knees, a dark sitcom where she learns that, kicking and screaming, someday we’ve all got to grow up. It’s on Wed 13th Nov at the Libra Theatre Cafe in Chalk Farm.

🤣 Midweek stand-up Smash Up Comedy brings a self-identified ‘preposterous night’ of new material and nonsense hosted by Caroline Mabey where you’ll see professional comedians say their new jokes for the first (and sometimes last) time at Camden Comedy Club at the Camden Head, Tuesday 12th Nov.

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