Sydenham Arts

Sydenham Arts is a registered charity and community arts organisation based in South East London, which was awarded funding in December 2015 by The Arts Council, Lewisham Council, and the Big Lottery for its new home - The Sydenham Centre on Sydenham Road. The area has had many artistic residents, particularly orchestral musicians, and including Kazuo Ishiguro the Booker Prize-winning novelist who wrote “The Remains of the Day” in Sydenham in 1989. The Guardian article. Sydenham Arts is passionately supported by the residents, who take part, volunteer and support the festivals, and this community spirit adds a notable quality to the events.
Sydenham Arts provides events all year round, promoting the Arts for the benefit of all, but in particular the residents of Sydenham SE26, SE23 and the surrounding areas. Previously known as Sydenham Arts Festival and run by Jonathan Kaufman the idea for a festival grew out of an Independent Booksellers’ Week at Kirkdale Bookshop in July 2008.
Since 2009 there have been annual festivals in July embracing every art form and seasonal mini festivals were added in 2015. The schedules have a particular emphasis on encouraging the young to read. Helen Goward, managing director of Sydenham Arts from 2015, said “It is essential for us to cultivate a use of books at a very young age."
Sydenham Arts gives a platform for emerging, local artists, musicians, actors, writers and others, as well as importing established artists from outside the area. To date these include poets Benjamin Zephaniah and John Hegley, musicians such as Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Caroll Thompson, Janet Kay, Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin and the award winning singer-songwriter Ian Siegal. Participating authors have included Alan Johnson MP, whose memoir 'This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood' published in 2013, won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize (2014) and the Orwell Prize, (Britain's top political writing award) - as well as Blake Morrison, Xiaolu Guo, and many others. Spoken Word performers have included Ben Haggarty, founder of The Crick Crack Club. Children's authors who have performed at Sydenham Arts include Steve Cole, who was incidentally in charge of BBC Worldwide's merchandising of the BBC Television series Doctor Who between 1997 and 1999, and who in 2013 was nominated by Ian Fleming Publications to continue the Young Bond series first written by Charlie Higson.
There are free participatory workshops and projects organized in partnership with local schools and colleges, and mentoring for young actors, singers, musicians, playwrights and poets. Originally the festival took place at multiple venues including The Kirkdale Bookshop and The Dolphin pub. From summer 2016, a permanent performance and exhibition space will be established on Sydenham High Street.
Sydenham has had many residents in the Arts, including David Bowie who lived there for five years, French impressionist Camille Pissarro and the three-time academy award winning costume designer, Sandy Powell OBE (nominated a further 12 times) who went to Sydenham High School. Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and Margaret Lockwood, star of the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes (1938) were also born and raised in Sydenham. . According to Henri Vever in 1908, French glass designer René Lalique attended Sydenham Art College between 1878-1880.

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