In the meantime… situates Somers Town as its starting point in the Camden borough, but acknowledges other initiatives that have come before. In order to amplify these voices, here is a research directory of existing community and organisation activities taking place within and around Somers Town.
There are political nuances and power struggles within this network that you’ll see outlined through our categories, some of which overlap and merge by association. They include: ‘Locally Directed Initiatives’ – grassroots projects by and for residents of Somers Town, ‘Council Directed Initiatives’ – projects throughout the wider Camden network, ‘Community Initiatives’, ‘Creatively Directed Initiatives’, ‘Local Artists and Activists’, ‘Curatorial References’ and ‘Public Records’.
We invite you to engage in the resources below, serving as an insight into the many other important stories being told in the area. If you know of an initiative in Camden that should be featured, feel free to email ‘inthemeantime_rca@outlook.com’.
Our directory is created in consultation with Diana Foster from A SPACE FOR US, who is an artist and activist documenting Somers Town.
Community Initiatives
Flori canto sells good drinks for your health and the environment, including coffee, tea and plants. It’s runned by one of our local contributors, Javier Calderon who’s the director of UK Mexican Arts Society, and it’s located in 90 Chalton Street near the UK Maxican Arts Society.
Community Initiatives
Founded in 1967 by Lord Longford to address the needs of young people who were involved in drug misuse in the West End of London, New Horizon Youth Centre continues today to work with the most vulnerable and at risk young people. During those five decades the centre has continued to provide a safe space for young people experiencing homelessness in the capital, whether that is at their original base in Covent Garden or through their existing home in Somers Town.
Community Initiatives
The Camden New Journal is a British independent newspaper published in the London Borough of Camden. It was launched by late editor Eric Gordon in 1982 following a two-year strike at its predecessor, the Camden Journal. It carries significant influence locally, due to its high news content, investigations and large circulation. Camden New Journal is frequently critical of local and national government, which has led to attacks by national government ministers, as well as local councillors, unusually for a local paper.
Community Initiatives
The Somers Town Neighbourhood Plan 2016-2026 is a document put together through an extensive community consultation with the guidance of volunteer Michael Parkes (Community Planner), Donna Turnbull from Voluntary Action Camden and members of the Neighbourhood Forum Plan Drafting Group. The Neighborhood Plan is seen as an important opportunity for the existing community to help themselves out of disadvantage through increasing accessibility to affordable housing, jobs and training, health, education, and the creation of the safe and attractive environment. The Neighbourhood Plan is yet to be signed off as Camden changed the designation of the area.
Community Initiatives
Camden Highline is a charity with exciting plans to build a new elevated park and walking route on the disused stretch of railway viaduct, connecting Camden Gardens in the west to York Way in the east. It will be a space that people will be inspired by, learn from and enjoy, with seating areas, cafés, public art and charitable activities. The route is 1.2km long, around 8 metres above ground and will bring new local green space to 20,000 people. They are currently crowdfunding to build this dream garden, visit the website to find out more and donate.
Community Initiatives
Camden Giving is a London Giving scheme based on the notion that we can all give something – time, skills and money – we channel those resources into aligned action that strategically addresses neighbourhood needs in a joined-up way. Camden Giving is a recent but a key funder to community projects in Somers Town. Acting on facts, data and hard evidence and with a deep knowledge of the community’s key issues and assets, Camden Giving works to deliver people-friendly programmes outside local government provision.
Community Initiatives
Story Garden is Global Generation’s newest garden oasis on an acre of meanwhile space at the British Library. Built for the local community, this space brings the local residents together for engaging activities including: food growing, communal meals, shared stories and creative activities. Story Garden brings to the fore the importance of storytelling and making.
Community Initiatives
Containing over 200,000 items on the history of the borough, the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre is an organisation which uses extensive archives built from local contributions to help residents and visitors discover family histories, the history of the area you, local buildings, and more. This resource also inherited the old St Pancras Housing Archives. This makes it a fantastic record for people interested in Somers Town to engage in research through photos, community magazines and more.
Community Initiatives
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers is a progressive, democratic and highly professional trade union, a fast growing union with more than 83,000 members from almost every sector of the transport industry – from the mainline and underground railways, shipping and offshore, buses and road freight. Unions such as these are vital to networks such as that of Somers Town, an enormous site of thoroughfare due to Kings Cross Station, greatly affected by the HS2 developments.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Queering Camden is a living, community-made mapping project of queerness in all its forms across Camden, run by local resident Sarah Allen. As more queer spaces and organisations close in Camden and Greater London, and LGBTQ+ people face high rates of mental health problems as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK, this project attempts to celebrate this community and reclaim public and private space by digitally mapping and naming queerness across the borough. This project welcomes submissions through their website from all people who identify as LGBTQ+ who have lived, worked, or simply travelled through Camden.
Community Initiatives
Voluntary Action Camden is a locally run initiative and grassroots meta body who advise and support the voluntary sector in Camden. VAC have been vital supporters to local initiatives like that of A SPACE FOR US by Diana Foster. They work with local residents, community groups and organisations, as well as local business and statutory and public partners, to develop and support community action and activity in Camden. Whilst advocating for and providing a voice for the sector and local residents to ensure the needs of the sector and the community are heard, represented and acted-on by those in strategic and decision making bodies.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Camden Studios is a housing complex of purpose-built artists’ studios, designed in 1966 by Sir Peter Shepheard for St Pancras Council. It is an artists’ community, currently comprising 10 studios, which are mixed occupancy due to the ‘right to buy’ but half remain as council housing.
The image seen here is taken before the redevelopment of the hall where new social housing was created, paid for by private sales of new homes across the road where the new community centre
The studios have a rich cultural and architectural history and have been home over the years to many artists, including sculptor Peter László Peri, designer Peggy Angus and the Surrealist artist Richard Niman, who still resides there with his wife Heather. Currently Sonia Uddin, In the meantime… contributor also lives there under the social housing scheme.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Joy in Weaving is Joygun Nehar, In the Meantime… contributor’s 10 week collaborative workshop as part of the MAKE @ Story Garden programme. The weaving, featured in our interactive PDF is the unfinished work from this workshop, which unexpectedly closed due to lockdown. During the workshop, local participants explored different textiles, making a small frame loom, learning the basics of weaving on and off a table loom and working together to create a collaborative piece of woven artwork.The workshop continued online wherever possible and encouraged local people to experience the joy in weaving at a very important time.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
AiR are a collective of artists and spatial practitioners who prioritise staying local.. Since 2007 AiR has collaborated with citizens, local authorities, education, housing and community organisations to realise over four hundred public artworks. AiR stayed for four years in Kings Cross during the construction of the new estate, testing alternatives to contemporary conditions of privatised public space and neighbouring with the communities of the Cally, Somers Town, and Maiden Lane. Their King’s Cross interventions included ten Unannounced Acts of Publicness artworks which appeared unannounced in Granary Square; Neighbouring shared local knowledge through walks, screenings, performances, and conversation; Cally Calls paired local people with seven artists to explore the Cally concluding through an exhibition; and Kings Cross Walking Club walked every Thursday for a year, connecting across and through this place, tracking the seasons and neighbourhood change.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Free Weaving Free Swimming is a weaving work by Caroline Mawer, one of our local contributors. She used to participate in Joygun Nehar’s weaving project at Story Garden. The story of this work goes like this: I’m free-swimming in the Kunene River. Hundreds of kilometres of onion-bag Namibian desert shrink to nothing when, out of nowhere, there’s a sudden smear of luscious green velvet plant-life, edging the languid aquamarine silk of the River. A huge bubbling plaited-corduroy waterfall is underpinned by turquoise plastic scaffolding-protectors. On the far side of the river, the gold-tipped highlands of Angola loom.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Founded in the summer of 2016, Lifeafterhummus is a Community Benefit Society (FCA registration number 7808), run with the help of local volunteers. For the residents of St Pancras and Somers Town Ward, King’s Cross Ward and Regent’s Park Ward, they offer: weekly food parcels,
social prescriptions, employability, and additional support.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Hopscotch Asian Women’s Centre was established as a Save the Children project to help and support Bangladeshi women and children who had come to join their partners in the UK to settle. They are in partnership with a number of centres – such as Somers Town Community Association, Age UK Camden, Origin Housing…
Locally Directed Initiatives
Plot 10 is a grassroots childrens’ club started by locals residents on what was then a bomb site, and has huge support in the community. This community play project space and outdoor green area runs breakfast clubs, after school clubs, holiday playschemes and a girls club for 9-14 year olds in Somers Town. Now in a CIP building, designed by Adam Khan with architectural considerations towards community, familiarity and security, this space is a rare public building, providing a much-needed service to local children.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Nata28 is a community Cafe on Ossulston Street, Somers Town with a Portuguese flavour. It serves nata cakes, a tradition of catholic nuns at the Jerónimos Monastery of Belem, in Lisbon, who started selling the tasty cakes.They were so successful that the legacy was passed through generations, reaching millions. Now they are brought to Somers Town local residents through daily baked Natas and this provides an all important community space for residents in what was the Community centre.
Locally Directed Initiatives
The Ossulston Estate is a multi-storey council estate built by the London County Council on Chalton Street in Somers Town between 1927 and 1931. It was unusual at the time both in its inner-city location and in its modernist, Karl Marx Hoff inspired design, and all the original parts of the estate are now Grade II listed buildings. The estate was built to rehouse those poor who were not being served by the LCC’s new suburban estates, and was significantly denser to suit the urban site. This estate, like many others in Somers Town, has been home to famous squatting movements such as that of Jeremey Hardy and Julian Temple.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Coffee House is a pub, cocktail bar, meeting rooms and a bookable apartment space on Charlton street. It was originally run by french refugees but more recently has changed ownership. The Coffee House continues to pay homage to its roots through maintaining the original name.
Locally Directed Initiatives
King’s Cafe is a Somers Town local cafe on Phoenix Road that has provided space and refuge to many members of the community as well as hosted community events and exchanges.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Action Youth Boxing Intervention is the incredible work of ex-convict Albert McEyeson who has developed this youth programme. AYBI is a Camden based community project who work closely with Somers Town youth and other Camden youth initiatives to support young people through their development and encourage them away from youth crime. The mission is to break the cycle of offending, and violence in primarily young and vulnerable people in order to improve their lifestyle choices.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Camden United FC was set up in 2019 by a group of friends from across the borough – with a strong social conscience, and a desire to make positive change. Made up of men from working-class families from a range of different backgrounds and ethnicities, the club has set out to engage in community work that goes past football. In addition to its men’s 11-a-side team, Camden United has created two youth sides – under-12s and under-14s. The training sessions are held in a Somers Town estate and provided for free by club volunteers, for local kids. The club also speaks out regularly about the dangers of knife crime. Looking to the future, Hafid Ali, Camden United’s co-founder wants to grow in the short-term by expanding the number of teams and in the long term, by setting up a youth club for the local community to more closely tackle knife crime.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Pinner Cafe is a Somers Town local shop that has provided space and refuge to many members of the community as well as serving the local community and construction workers and the RMT with reasonably priced food in an expensive area. For example, the cafe provided a venue for A Space For Us to sell their publication, Spirit! and gather in exchange.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Cock Tavern is the last old working class pub and heritage site in Somers Town, as part of Ossulton Estate. Its heritage also features through its interior designs which have some regional importance. It was rebuilt with an adjoining block of council flats in 1929-30 as part of the Ossulston Estate by the LCC Architects’ Department under G Topham Forrest. Originally a three-storey building of rendered brick and with four operational/blocked doorways indicating a multi-roomed interior, now consists of two bars with the rear bar mainly a function/meeting room and important community space and site for local artists. After a year of crisis, this pub is at risk like many others but the local community continues its efforts to protect this historical building.
Locally Directed Initiatives
People’s Museum by BY A SPACE FOR US is a space dedicated to benefitting the Somers Town community through maintaining a sense of place and education by echoing the ethos of a heritage, social reform and radical thinking. A site for big ideas of social justice that change lives. Diana Foster is currently campaigning to fund this endeavour. A SPACE FOR US is needed to help the area to recover and to preserve the unique character of a London working class ‘town’ at risk from the huge, destabilising development: Somers Town St Pancras. This is the place where radical social reformers can make their home, and realise their dreams. Please donate anything you can through the link above.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Space is a Community Interest Company, currently developing a community co-designed Space for a permanent People’s Museum in Somers Town St Pancras to honour working class stories and celebrate ‘radicals, reformers and rebels’ history but also to benefit the local community as a social enterprise and through education.Their narrative is clear: this patch links Wollstonecraft to Jellicoe, priests in pubs to drinkers in prams; Shelley to Sainsbury, urban romantics to social reformers. They have worked in the area for over 6 years on this and are local resident led: they have produced 4 SPIRIT! publications, an oral history project and one film and two exhibitions: Made of Somers Town and an outdoor display in Phoenix Road.
Locally Directed Initiatives
What are your wishes? is a filming project by Somers Town Wishes. The answers reflect concerns about the area in transition between the Euston station and St.Pancras station with gentrification. The idea of locals filming family, friends, and neighbours is based on the fact that the narratives of the area have been growing and continue to grow.
Public Records, News, Journals
28b Camden Street, shared with us by contributor Sonia Uddin, is a moving documentary which tells the story of Camden Studios, before it was rebuilt in the 60’s and the artist community hall attached to the complex was demolished in 2017- referred to in Sonia Uddin’s contribution to the interactive PDF. This film tells the history of Camden Studios when the studios were first threatened with demolition and before their rebuilding and demolition. Today, 28b Camden Street address doesn’t exist. For a while they didn’t have a number and used the community centre address, 30 Camden Street. When the hall was knocked down in 2017 residents voted to go back to the original 28, but the B was dropped as there is no A anymore.
Watch for free via the link.
Public Records, News, Journals
A community paper Between the Tracks shared the stories and voices that make up Somers Town, this was a resident-led initiative for a short time. As an area sandwiched between two of London’s major stations this small community has taken knocks and fought to survive in the heart of London, Somers Town is ‘Between the Tracks’, which inspires the title of this monthly newspaper. This paper, produced by local residents, recorded the conflict between the Community Investment Programme Battle with Camden Council and local reporting on that of HS2 developments affecting the area.
Local Artists and Activists
Steve Denholm is a Somers Town local resident and long term activist and community worker in the area. He co-founded Somers Town Festival of cultures in 1997 and ran this and other community events until 2020, after the passing of his partner Alan Paterson. As a blues musician and community activist his love for music as an act of coming together fed his approach to many community events.
“I felt there was no platform in Somers Town for people to be together in harmony, to overcome perceived differences, to fight racism, to promulgate the view that we are all human. There is far more that brings us together than divides us in the end.”
Creatively Directed Initiatives
The King’s Cross Field Map is a log of creative responses to this place. The entries include artworks and interventions, hypothetical proposals, and place-based research, and reveal the breadth of response by artists and designers. The selected works recognise a local place and the people living and working here, with a particular sensitivity to their immediate, and broader, political and social context in an area under considerable processes of urban change. The field map is log from 1837-2016, offered as a public resource and prompt for future reminiscences, reworkings, exchanges, and collaborations.
Local Artists and Activists
Alan Paterson was an activist in gay rights and community rights who set up START (Somers Town Art), the initiative that led the Somers Town Festival of Cultures between 1997 and 2020. Since his passing in 2019, the festival has moved onto new management. However, Alan’s lifelong efforts within the Somers Town community continue to have an effect on the area. For several years he implemented different community events which helped unify a community impoverished and under the pressures of redevelopment. As his partner and co-founder of the Festival of Cultures, Steve Denholm said- “he wanted a festival to say: ‘we are better than this’… (Now) I do think it’s a far more tolerant area with less violence (and) the festival has something to do with that”
Local Artists and Activists
Sue Crockford, who died aged 76 in 2019, lived in Somers Town, where she was known as a campaigner, teacher, community activist and film-maker as well as a devoted mother and much-loved friend and neighbour. She developed the 1984 documentary on the innovative social housing association project including archival footage of 1930s Slum clearance. She also did vital work establishing the first gay youth club in Somers Town and as part of the campaign to prevent closure of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Euston Road in 1975, as well as many other significant activist interventions through creative practices.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Silent Footnotes was a twelve hour silent walking of the neighbourhoods of King’s Cross on 4 May 2016, created by Anna Hart and Tilly Fowler to mark AiR leaving Central Saint Martins.The walking began and ended in Granary Square, and passed through twenty-one times on a route of five repeated loops through Maiden Lane, Somers Town, The Cally, Argyle Square and the fringes of Pentonville. Silent Footnotes was a further testing of publicness in King’s Cross with fifty-four colleagues, associate artists, students, friends, neighbours, and interested strangers walking together over the day in shared silence
Image Credit©Lou Macnamara
Local Artists and Activists
Charlie Levine is an independent curator, artistic director, project manager and lecturer working in the West Midlands, London and Mumbai. Levine’s curatorial practice centralises on in/visible networks, working with feminist histories, creating and bringing together communities, and working site responsively and with architecture. She was Manager of Arts and Tourism, Camden Council 2016 – 2017 and Development Officer, Arts and Tourism for Camden Council 2014 – 2016. Her practice has naturally interwoven with the local area and has benefitted community and activist engagement in the local area.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Camden Art Centre is a place for art and artists; a place for the curious, the novice and the expert alike. It’s a place to see, to make, to learn and to talk about contemporary art, whether in their building, attending off-site projects or via our digital forums. As a charity rooted in our North West London community, they foster a sense of belonging in their spaces. Working closely with local schools, community groups and specialist partners they nurture the next generation of artists, from early years to adulthood, enabling everyone to get up close to art, to meet artists and to make work themselves.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Founded in 2020, the UK Mexican Arts Society expanded from the legacy of the former Chalton Gallery on Charlton Street, Somers Town (2015-2020. Chalton presented the work of over 200 Mexican and British artists in the r gallery, in various locations of London and Mexico City .The UK Mexican Arts Society now brings together Mexico and The UK through art exhibitions, live events, education and collaborative research and development programmes. Promoting Mexican and British art in the gallery space in London and their cultural space in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
P21 Gallery, located in Somers Town, is a London-based charitable trust promoting contemporary Arab art and culture. P21 Gallery is also committed to creating visibility for Arab artists worldwide. Their residency programme, reACT, offers invaluable opportunities for emerging and student artists to contribute their talents and artwork to help build and strengthen cultural ties and to facilitate dialogues between the East and West on terms designed by a younger generation. They also support the Somers Town local community through the festival and have become an integrated part of the community. P21 Gallery’s architectural spaces were designed to maximise the effect of contemporary art as a discourse, through multimedia installations with supporting facilities for public functions. These include conferences, workshops, lectures, and film screening. A specialised café serves the general public.
Creatively Directed Initiatives
Woven together is a collaborative weaving project led by Joygun Nehar and Diana Foster whose results will be archived through Diana Foster’s A SPACE FOR US. This project invites local residents to add their name to a historical artwork, archiving the communities of Somers Town through weaving, to tell the story of the area. Names tell so much about where we are from, our families, heritage and culture and this weave seeks to bring together the voices of such a rich community. If you are a local resident and interested in contributing your name you can enquire via the link above.
Council Directed Initiatives
Camden People’s Museum is a virtual collection of artworks, people and experiences that reveal the vibrant culture of the people of Camden. Sharing Camden’s diverse heritage through creativity, the museum presents the stories, sounds and spirit of the borough. The museum exists in a virtual world, presenting the collection online and through immersive digital experiences on the streets of Camden, illuminating and animating the stories from the borough. Camden People’s Museum is a collaboration between Camden residents, artists, technology specialists and curators. The museum was established through Camden Alive and will continue to grow.
Public Records, News, Journals
Camden Magazine is a magazine developed and published by the local council to increase awareness and understanding of council services. It focuses on community engagement and uplifting the history and voices of the local area. The magazine also provides guidance for things such as council tax, job seeking and increases awareness about the development of the area, local hearings and environmental issues.
Council Directed Initiatives
Camden Forest 2025 was at the Think and Do on Kentish Town Road in 2019 that Mike Jenn first mooted the idea. He realised that there were many trees on offer from the mayor of London’s fund in collaboration with the Trust for Conservation. Most were allocated to community planting sites, but why not supplement these with a ‘Citizens’ Forest’ planted in private gardens? What makes the Camden Forest different to other tree projects, is that each tree that is planted in our citizens’ forest will have a ‘story guardian’ to witness and commemorate the lives of its guardians. Historically, trees have always attracted folklore and spiritual significance. Every tree is numbered and mapped on the borough map on our website in order for us to collectively view our Camden Forest.
Public Records, News, Journals
Camden 2025 is a new vision for the future of Camden. Its purpose is making Camden a better place for everyone to live by 2015 through achieving a safe, fair, creative and active community.
Council Directed Initiatives
Camden’s ‘Think & Do’ Pop Up is a community space to give people in Camden the chance to come together to develop ideas and projects tackling the climate and ecological crisis. The creation of a new civic space is a direct follow on from Camden’s Citizens’ Assembly on the Climate Crisis held in July 2019 which resulted in 17 recommendations. At its Full Meeting on 7th October 2019, the Council unanimously agreed to take forward all these recommendations. During the 2020 and 21 pandemic era Camden Think & Do initiated the Camden Future Journal publication, published in January 2021.
Public Records, News, Journals
The Camden Profile (January 2021), published by London Borough of Camden, provides the latest analysis across a range of available demographic statistics for the borough.
Council Directed Initiatives
Camden Alive is a programme of arts and cultural events run by Camden Council that celebrates the people of Camden. Sharing Camden’s diverse heritage through creativity, Camden Alive captures the sights, sounds and spirit of the borough and what it means to live and work in Camden. Through music, dance, food, fashion, performance and visual art the stories of our neighbourhoods unfold and are showcased by the creation of the virtual Camden People’s Museum.
Public Records, News, Journals
On the 7th January 2021 a special 4 page wrap around was published by Camden New Journal under the name Camden Future Journal. This issue, created and crowdfunded by a coalition of local Camden community groups, seeks to answer the question: What if we created a special wraparound edition of the Camden New Journal written from a future where we have solved the climate and social inequality crisis? A selection of utopian stories that imagine a fairer, happier, and less consumption-based society in 2030 Camden from a diverse range of local residents were presented here and helped CNJ themselves commit to a greener printing process.
Council Directed Initiatives
Kings Cross Community Safety Partnership is a collaborative service provided by Camden Local Council and Kings Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood Association. . The partnership hosts public meetings around local issues, planning, policing etc. Open to residents, businesses and organisations in Kings Cross ward.
Public Records, News, Journals
Camdenist is a new magazine-style cross-platform media title, currently in beta mode, or pre-release phase.Their goal is to create a totally new approach to local publishing, using the latest technology – and some of the oldest, too – as a means to connect people and promote all the good things that happen in the London Borough of Camden.
Council Directed Initiatives
The Community Investment Programme (CIP) is Camden Council’s 15-year plan to invest money in schools, homes and community facilities. It also involves the redevelopment of the area through privatisation and redistribution of funds through different initiatives. Simultaneously however, it is raising funds to increase social housing in Camden. Despite some positive contributions to the local area, there is a battle between the CIP and local volunteers as the investment plan subsumes their existing work and redirects power structures to larger corporations rather than the local voices. One scheme in Somers Town was the controversial luxury tower block in Brill Place Park which many of the local community and the Forum objected to.
Public Records, News, Journals
SPIRIT! is a series of three editions of journals, published by A Space For Us, with histories and contemporary stories of Somers Town and St Pancras. There is also a children’s book Fantastic Tales of St Pancras.
Public Records, News, Journals
One of the many films recording the slum clearance this tells of flat opening. ‘Somers Town. Let the good work go on!’ (1932) Lady Patricia Ramsay is seen opening another block of 35 flats made for the working classes of London. 160 had been built in the last 6 years on what was once one of London’s worst slums, Somers Town pioneered the first phase of social housing in London.
Council Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Community Association is a local charity dedicated to providing inclusive and innovative services for local residents. Activities span: youth support, public events, forums, walks and talks, job seekers support, local news, mental health support, volunteer work and much more. They also have an ongoing youth project that does great work.
Council Directed Initiatives
Georgia was appointed Leader of Camden Council in May 2017 and has served as a Councillor for Kentish Town Ward since 2010.
Georgia studied at Camden School for Girls and has lived in the Borough for most of her adult life. At the age of 24 she was elected a Labour councillor for the Kentish Town ward of Camden in 2010 and prior to becoming leader she held cabinet roles responsible for young people, economic growth and adult social care. Georgia has a particular interest in youth politics and published a book called Wasted: How Misunderstanding Young Britain Threatens Our Future. It draws on two years spent travelling around the UK interviewing young people.
Local Artists and Activists
Slaney Devlin is a Somers Town resident and activist who is chair of Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum. She has worked extensively over 20 years to help improve the life-chances of Somers Town residents, amplify their voices and protect them from poor air quality, environmental noise and the loss of green and open spaces. She has worked closely with other resident groups in the Euston area to try and lessen the damage done by HS2 to our communities. She led the campaign to prevent a luxury tower block being built on a Somers Town park, which was sadly lost.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Youth Centre offers support and services to young people aged 13 to 19 and up to 25 with learning difficulties and disabilities. They also run some services and activities from South Camden Youth Access Point (SCYAP) and the Surma Centre. They aim to provide tailor-made support for young people and their families to stay safe, be healthy, succeed in education, employment and training and play a positive role in their communities.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum is the resident-only forum in Somers Town. Based in the neighbourhood planning process, it aims to be responsible for the local Somers Town Neighbourhood plans and other documents, the monthly meeting enables all residents to keep up-to-date with their local community and publish minutes online. It has been set up to promote the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of Somers Town. Its current Chair is Slaney Devlin.
Locally Directed Initiatives
START (Somers Town Art) is a voluntary community group of local residents in Somers Town set up by Alan Paterson and Steve Denholm to run Somers Town Festival of Cultures and other creative community initiatives from 1997 to 2019. The festival, now known as Somers Town festival is a vital yearly community event for local residents to gather and celebrate the culture of Somers Town. START initiated this project after the racially charged murder of young Richard Everitt in 1994, to try to bring harmony to the disparate cultures in Somers Town. After 20 years of invaluable community contributions this collective have now handed over the running of the festival to Jacky Casey.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Somers Town Festival is Camden’s largest street festival, hosted on Chalton Street. Celebrating the culturally rich fabric of the area through music, food, art, dance and much more. It is run by a group of volunteers who originated in START (Somers Town Art) Festival of Cultures. This festival is a yearly opportunity for local communities to come together and support one another whilst simultaneously enriching the local heritage.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Greening Phoenix Road is a document to inform designs for greening and public realm improvements along Phoenix Road and Brill Place. Camden Council appointed Groundwork London to carry out initial community and stakeholder engagement to understand the needs, priorities and concerns of Somers Town communities and other key stakeholders.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Attitude is Everything is a Somers Town based initiative to improve deaf and disabled people’s access to live music. They manage a Charter of Best Practice for music venues, clubs and festivals, which recommends a range of improvements to remove physical and attitudinal barriers to access. They also offer disability equality training to venues, information packs and run Club Attitude, a bi-monthly club night at various venues. Disabled people acting as ‘mystery shoppers’ monitor the Charter and give feedback on venues.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Scene & Heard is committed to the children of Somers Town, to improving their prospects and providing an environment where they can have fun, learn and grow through theatre and interactive community activities. Through this work they aim to: boost children’s self-esteem, raise their aspirations, provide high quality one-to-one mentoring, tailor courses to the developing needs of each child and provide an environment where each child feels they can offer something of value. They also serve the larger community of Somers Town, providing high-quality theatre in their community.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Small Green Shoots is a Somers Town based youth-led charity offering an alternative to the conventional system for education, training and entry into the jobs market. They help young people facing difficult life circumstances gain access to the entertainment and creative industries through paid classroom learning, vocational training, internships and access to creative grants. This allows their young workers (the “Shoots”) to build a career, rather than just seek a job. It’s in this way that Small Green Shoots has also established itself as a trusted partner to a wide variety of music and creative businesses, empowering them to diversify their workforce.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Housmans are radical booksellers since 1945 whose independent bookshop is hosted in Somers Town, established in 1959. They specialise in books, magazines, and periodicals of radical interest and progressive politics, such as feminism, black politics, LGBTQIA+, environment, anarchism. They also host events and book groups throughout the year as well as providing meeting rooms, vital community spaces.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Breaking Barriers (2007) Part 2 documents the work of START (Somers Town Art) in setting up the annual Festival of Cultures – bringing a diverse community together with music and entertainment from around the world. In this part you will see a walk through of the festival, as you watch you can see the real meaning of community as you see the coming together of diverse local residents and practices in one site, all developed by volunteers from Somers Town.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Breaking Barriers (2007) Part 1 documents the work of START (Somers Town Art) in setting up the yearly festival of cultures and other community arts events- bringing a diverse community together with music and entertainment from around the world. In this part you will see a document of the local voices impacted by the quality of living in Somers Town and can begin to understand the inherent need for the work of collectives such as START.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Theatro Technis is an independent theatre studio space in Somers Town that hosts important cultural events and reflects the multi-cultural diversity of Somers Town. With 62 years of experience, 120 seat capacity, and an up to date lighting and sound system, the venue stages both modern and classical plays. The auditorium is used for theatre productions, live music and dance performances, rehearsals, film location work and public meetings.
Locally Directed Initiatives
Clouds over Somers Town by Esther Leslie is one of writings in the book The Alternative Guide to the London Boroughs edited by Owen Hatherley. This piece of writing navigates the indeterminability and intermediacy of Somers Town, dealing with its geographical function between two main stations of London- St Pancras and Euston stations.
Locally Directed Initiatives
TRA Halls are sites of grounds up community events run by residents committees. These committees overlook and organise parties for local residents at which all cultures mix. Somers Town TRA Hall sites are well known for bringing local Benaglali communities together with white communities to celebrate their love of food. They also organise community trips during the summer such as trips to Margate and Southend.
Local Artists and Activists
Local community activist Fran Heron has had a great influence on local politics due to chairing a number of committees and leading an anti-HS2 campaign. She lives in Amphtill Estate and is chair of the Camden Town District Management Committee.
Local Artists and Activists
Jack Boal is a performer and theatre maker from Camden. His performances lace comedy with interactive theatre and explore queer themes. In NW1 Utopia, Commissioned by Queering Camden, he, as an artist who spent most of his life in Camden, shows the aspirations to create his own queer space and the restrictions in realising it, which questions “what is home?” or “what is the sense of belonging?” Furthermore, he implies the gentrification of Camden.
Local Artists and Activists
Peter Adjaye aka AJ Kwame, is a conceptual sound artist & composer, whose work ‘Music for Architecture’ focuses on the intersection between sound and architecture. Peter worked with Camden Alive on the Alexandra & Ainsworth estate sound art project with the residents of the estate. He created soundscapes and interactive workshops with residents of the estate, including both younger and older residents.
Local Artists and Activists
Chasney Maturine (aka SKANDOUZ) is a Jamaican & Grenadian resident of Somers Town who develops and manages spoken-word and rap projects across the borough. Describing himself as a Hip Hop Artist and educator, he also founded a youth Organisation called WISDM (We Inspire support Develop Master) as well as being 1/3 of the Hip Hop supergroup FRSHR. He also runs a record label called Club FRSHRZ.
Local Artists and Activists
Ben Preston is an aspiring writer/poet in London’s Somers Town with a couple of collections under his belt. He’s on Instagram as benovercast.
Local Artists and Activists
JJ Bola is a writer and poet from the Democratic Republic of congo, who moved to London at 6 years old and grew up in Camden. In many ways, JJ’s roots belonged to Camden, a place which is quintessentially London, where “everyone belongs” yet, JJ’s refugee status set him aside from the rest and led him to question what belonging really meant. His 2017 novel No Place to Call Home explored this in depth. JJ’s position is similar to many talented local residents in the diverse area of Camden and gives a great insight into what it truly feels to be an insider and an outsider all at once.
Local Artists and Activists
Paul Lowne is a self-taught artist, a ceramicist, writer and active participant in the Local History Group, a Painter and Printmaker. With his background as being from a long standing working class Somers Town family, his works navigate grassroots’ collectivism to overcome prejudice, bigotry, and the huge economic gap between the rich and the economic poor. His search is to express beauty, politics, geometric use and colour. He believes “Art Saves Lives.”Paul says: “If you know your History, then you know where you’re coming from.”
Local Artists and Activists
Siobhan Bradshaw is a CSM fine art photographer. She first picked up a camera while living in Soho, her window was a cinema screen. Late night journeys, she was dubbed le Flaneur and her work was greatly influenced by the emotional depth of jazz record covers, abstraction and improvisation. Later she turned her attention to the musicians that inspired her at the Jazz Cafe.
Her work also often interrogates questions of personal identity, gender and sexuality through the media of photography and screen printing.She is at present working on book and exhibition of musicians from her Camden archives, and working with Somers Town Space in documenting change in Somers Town.
Curatorial References
Walking Cities: London (second edition) is a collection of interdisciplinary writings by people from different fields (such as art, writing, architecture, music, human geography, and philosophy), considering how a city walk creates the city’s narratives. This book has been our programme’s inspiration in considering how walking affects one’s orientation within the urban environment.
Curatorial References
How to Work Better(1991) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, taken from Anthony Huberman’s Take Care(2011), inspired the aims of this project. Taking a slower, more thoughtful approach in order to engage in a process which is fulfilling for all parties whilst also engaging in active listening, learning and reflecting.
Curatorial References
The Open City Podcast is a free radio show platform of conversations about our city and around salient issues. These conversations aim to animate, educate and make discussions about the urban realm more accessible and inclusive.
Curatorial References
How Long is Now (1997-2019). Originally a 1977 light installation realised since then in a number of different iterations, How Long is Now and its legacy which has been extended over many years has inspired this project. The more we approached this question, we realised it as a fantastic curatorial reference for our project- a question where, the more it raises new questions, the less it becomes tangible and answerable. Thinking on legacy, the idea of a reflexive statement to the moment and extending engagement with questions like this through creative interventions fed our urge to engage with our audience in an extended manner.
Curatorial References
As Radical, As Mother, As Salad, As Shelter: What Should Art Institutions Do Now? In light of recent political shifts across the globe, have you sensed a change in the position of the art institution vis-à-vis political activism? Can an art institution go from being an object of critique to a site for organizing? How? As Radical, As Mother, As Salad, As Shelter explores these questions further and unpicks the implications and new questions around curatorial activism. In light of our project, these questions have allowed us to navigate through the responsibilities and understandings that this project should lead to.
Curatorial References
Why Let Outsiders Decide What We Need? By Diana Foster. An article, written by local resident, artist, and activist Diana Foster that gives an important look into the networks in Somers Town which claim to uplift local communities but instead, take from them. Diana unpicks the decisions to have complete outsiders decide what a community needs and fund institutions to do what community workers have been doing as unpaid work for years. She ponders over the disregard for detailed neighbourhood plans such as the one presented in this directory and navigates through the tensions of committees who lack any real understanding of the area, ignoring the existing initiatives in place and appropriating the area as a site for their self-involved community work. Diana’s writing was something which we constantly returned to in the development of this project. Our curatorial team’s aim was to continue asking our participants- what can we do for you? How can we uplift the existing local voices and avoid appropriating them as our own?
Curatorial References
Our curatorial approach to this project was to view all parts of it as equal to each other, but to also understand the relationship and connections between them that allowed this project to come together as a whole. Using Venn Diagrams, like the example of our 3rd iteration which you can see above, this visual tool allowed us to envision the project before its conception. Reflecting back now, the project has grown and developed- however, the core values and understandings developed through this approach remain.
Curatorial References
Charles Booth’s Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People in London, undertaken between 1886 and 1903, was one of several surveys of working class life carried out in the 19th century. It is the only survey for which the original notes and data have survived and therefore provides a unique insight into the development of the philosophy and methodology of social investigation in the United Kingdom. The record explores: railways, squats, trees, pollution, CIP’s and more, all relevant to the narratives of Somers Town.
Curatorial References
Somers Town by Shane Meadows is a black-and-white film following a pair of unlikely new friends and the girl they both fight for in their impoverished neighbourhood- Somers Town. It is a study of a social environment in London subtly exploring the effect of areas such as Somers Town on youth.