Brand new sustainably focused festival, ‘In a Field by a Bridge’ launches this July

This month sees the launch of ‘In a Field by a Bridge’, a weekend festival with a unique backdrop. In a community park, beside an international landmark, this is an event to inspire sustainable living and to celebrate community action.

This free festival on Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd July will showcase the juxtaposition of incredible London landmarks alongside cityscape, nature and one of the world’s great rivers. Celebrating everything that Potters Fields Park and the London Bridge neighbourhood have to offer; merging green spaces, evocative history, wonderful architecture, a diverse resident community, thriving businesses, this is one of the most culturally innovative, sustainable and exciting districts in London.

‘In a Field by a Bridge’ will be the first opportunity to showcase what London Bridge has to offer as a leading environmentally- focused business district, highlighting the transition to a carbon neutral economy, low impact living and healthy lifestyles. The impact of this festival on the local community is aimed to create positive social and economic longevity far beyond this launch weekend.

For a number of years, the London Bridge community has been addressing global problems with local commitments. Matching the ambition of Southwark Council and the Mayor of London, local businesses have committed to a first of its kind routemap with the aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and dramatically decreasing the 130,000 tonnes of CO2e they produce annually – an output equivalent to powering 25,295 homes a year. In a Field by a Bridge will highlight different ways we can collectively and individually decarbonise and instil new ideas for low carbon living into our daily routines.

“In a Field by a Bridge will mark the start of the summer for many of us. Alongside HemingwayDesign, we have curated two days of riverside festivities for the curious, creative and conscientious who also just like to have a really good time! Everything has been planned with sustainability in mind. Come along and discover Feast in a Field – our community cookout, experience making ceramics with Keith Brymer Jones of BBC2’s The Great Pottery Throw Down, and find a pre-loved bargain at the massive suitcase sale along the Thames. We hope to see ‘In a Field By a Bridge’ become a regular fixture on London’s cultural calendar for many years to come.”

– Ellie Beedham, Director of Arts, Team London Bridge

This free festival aims to enable and encourage education and action on greener living through creative programming. It’s jam-packed with an incredible showcase of live performances, interactive workshops, film screenings, architectural tours, activities for all the family and so much more.

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Keith Brymer Jones ‘In conversation’ with Wayne Hemingway:

Chatting about the pottery production history of the stunning Potters Fields; but will inevitably stray onto their shared history of being in bands, iconic London nightclubs, building creative businesses and becoming a household name.

• Andrew Logan ‘In Conversation’ with Ellie Beedham, Team London Bridge:

Plus Andrew will be launching his new mirrored artworks, ‘The Pollinators’ as part of a joyful parade at In a Field by a Bridge. He will be presenting a procession of new artworks created as always using recycled and reimagined materials, alongside a new colourful collection of fluttering and flattering wearable art pieces which will be available to purchase over the weekend.

• ‘The Two Bridges’ Talks, debates and roundtables co-curated with London National Park City:
• Nature Heals – Green and Blue Social Prescribing in London

Have you ever considered nature as a prescription for your wellbeing? Co-ordinated by Natural England this panel will showcase just a few of the many projects in London that help people connect with nature to benefit their health and wellbeing. The conversation will feature representatives of Bees and Refugees (offering therapeutic beekeeping and wild bee conservation in Greater London and Kent); Black Rootz (a gardening project led by people of colour in Haringey) and Gasworks Dock Partnership (who run the nature haven and community hub at Cody Dock in Newham), plus a freelance leader of mindful nature walks who has worked with projects across the capital.

• Growing Communities: London’s Urban Gardens

Exploring themes around: Urban Nature, Urban healing and Community Intervention Projects). Panellists include: Evangeline Crouch, Cody Dock / UK Youth for Nature; Sol Polo, OmVed Gardens

• 6 Steps to Becoming a Guerrilla Gardener; with Author and Activist Ellen Miles
• We’re a Neighbourhood in a Global City

Discussing the importance of building community networks, community action and capacity building in and around London Bridge/Southwark. Panellists include: Kelly Tyler, Social Impact Director, The Psychosynthesis Trust.

• Gardening for the Planet: The Hidden Power of Nature’s Misfits

Panellists include: Mike Green, London Fungus Network CIC; Tiria Shen, London National Park City Ranger

• Clayground Collective mass participatory clay workshop celebrating the history of pottery-making in the area:

Clayground Collective invite you to create your own clay city on Potters Fields, the Pickleherring site that was previously inhabited by the significant English Delftware pottery (1618-1708). With a joyful assembly of locals and visitors they will create a large-scale visual imprint in clay demonstrating the breadth of hand skills by those both experienced and new to clay. They will produce a large-scale raw clay installation celebrating the busy hands that made and decorated the Pickleherring Galleypots so loved by King Charles I. Once the installation is completed they will recycle the clay and it will be distributed to local organisations for reuse.

• Social enterprise Beyond Food community ‘Feast in a field’:

10 passionate cooks mentored by renowned chefs Simon Boyle and Leon Aarts, alongside local restaurants bring a scaled up version of their signature dish to the masses. Come and taste the culinary delights of this epic professional upskilling journey brought to you by local social enterprise, Beyond Food and Brigade Bar+Kitchen.

• Soundgarden with Junk Orchestra:

Soundgarden is a circular collection of tuned musical instruments made entirely from recycled materials. Rescued from the city industry, the reinvented objects become a melodic array of sonic delights for all!

• The Poetry Takeaway:

A diverse group of talented Poet Chefs will provide high quality personalised poetry for guests and visitors, written, performed and delivered from their mobile Poetry Emporium, The Poetry Takeaway.

• Exploring Anxiety Through Nature:

The Psychosynthesis Trust will be exploring how nature can have a positive impact on reducing anxious symptoms and increase wellbeing in this interactive experiment. With 1 in 100 people experiencing anxiety, The Psychosynthesis Trust, based in London Bridge, has over 40 years experience of offering psychotherapy and counselling and supporting people to awaken to who they really are. In this 45 minute workshop set in the beautiful setting of St John’s Churchyard, you will be guided through relaxation techniques and ways to build a deeper connection to yourself, whilst looking through the lens of nature.

• Tower Bridge Family Activity: Wonderful Windmills:

Discover the magic of wind power and give old materials a new life. This recycled craft workshop combines innovation, sustainability and artistry to create beautiful wind-powered wonders. Suitable for all ages, but particularly appropriate for those aged six to ten.

• Morley College:

A weekend of workshops offering an opportunity to explore your own creativity through clay, sculpture, paint and textiles as well as providing a platform to show the amazing work produced by Morley College students. Morley College is for adults and young people to explore their creative passions. In keeping with their founding principles of inclusion and social justice, Morley advocates lifelong learning as a vital contributor to personal and economic well-being. By enabling access to educational and cultural opportunities, Morley College London is a force for public good within the communities that it serves.

• London Vegetable Orchestra:

Experience the Unique Melodies of the London Vegetable Orchestra onboard Uber Boat by Thames Clipper. Get ready to witness a symphony like no other as the London Vegetable Orchestra takes the stage, creating extraordinary music using fresh carrots, courgettes and marrows as their instruments. Prepare to be amazed by the harmonious fusion of culinary creativity and musical talent! Catch them on a crossing between Westminster and London Bridge City piers, or roaming around In a Field by a Bridge across the weekend.

• Rock n Roll Nature Revelation:

A roaming performance that uses ideas from Permaculture to explore how nature exists around us wherever we are. Performed by Timberlina on Ukulele and Dan de la Motte, be sure to catch this both entertaining and educational show across the weekend.

Film screenings:

• Complicité presents ‘Can I Live?’ conceived, written and performed by Fehinti Balogun:

Why don’t we talk about it? Fehinti Balogun asks this urgent question and offers an invitation in Can I Live? a vital new digital performance about the climate catastrophe, sharing his personal journey into the biggest challenge of our times. Weaving his story with spoken word, rap, theatre, animation and the scientific facts, Fehinti charts a course through the fundamental issues underpinning the emergency, identifying the intimate relationship between the environmental crisis & the global struggle for social justice, and sharing how, as a young Black British man, he has found his place in the climate movement.

In the face of a sense of helplessness about the climate catastrophe, Can I Live? is an outstretched hand, inviting audiences to recognise they are not alone – and that through understanding the issues and connecting with the many powerful activists around the globe driving change, we can find a sense of hope for the future.

A Complicité production in association with the Barbican, London, supported by Doc Society and Oxford Playhouse. Supported by Arts Council England and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

• Time Bascule by Di Mainstone:

Set on Tower Bridge, Time Bascule is a speculative film that reimagines one of London’s most iconic landmarks as a living musical instrument. Spanning from 1915 to the present day, the film connects two female protagonists; Hannah Griggs – one of the first women to work on the bridge and 21st Century Rose – an environmentally conscious teen:

Di Mainstone was commissioned by Tower Bridge in 2019 to create an artwork that would celebrate its 125th anniversary and “make the bridge sing” a nod to Mainstone’s “Human Harp” project, in which she played New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge among others like industrial-strength harps. Funded by the City of London Corporation, Mainstone developed Time Bascule whilst working from the bridge’s South abutment where Hannah Griggs once lived and worked.

• Street Food Market:

Artisan food & drink market including, among others,

• Smashing Plates, local restaurant (St Thomas St), with other London branches
• Hiver Beers Ltd, fresh & natural craft beers. Only English ingredients. Always sustainably sourced., and are based less than 1 mile from Potters Fields
• Rendang! Thank You Ma’am
• En Root, a vegan Indian social enterprise, on its way to becoming a certified CIC.

• Independent market:

Sustainable Designer Makers showcasing their collections including;

• Renowned jeweller, Alex Monroe
• JewelFish, offer a repair and alteration service to people with broken or unworn jewellery, offering new life to existing items
• Dorota Bojanowska unisex designer, sources vintage pieces then enhances with beautiful screen print illustrations
• Grandpa’s Shirts, who repurpose garments and create new pieces by finding secondhand shirts and adding hems/ lace trims, transforming into tops or dresses
• PoBo, premium quality, sustainable casual and streetwear brand based in London
• Again & Again
• Skincare specialist, Georgiana John.
• ‘London National Park City Open’ programme of workshops, talks & walks celebrating their 4th anniversary with its network of rangers including:
• Get Guerrilla Gardening with Dream Green
• The New Urban Jungle participatory mural with Lauren Cook
• Radical Roots: An Ecosomatics and Rewilding Workshop
• A grounding and meditation exercise by Gul Yasin Studio.
• Omved Gardens presents Fermentation demo by Josephine Marchandise & Invertebrate ID workshop
• Studio Cultivates Natural Curriculum ‘Bulbs, Blood & Bites’
• Let’s Patch Things Up with Take It Up Wear It Out
• A Love Note to Urban Ecologies” Participatory Artwork Co-creation with Alisa Ruzavina
• Nature inspired creative writing with Felix Chee

• Suitcase Sale:

Following two sold out pop-ups at The Classic Car Boot Sale, Hemingway Design’s Suitcase Sale is coming to the internationally iconic location of Potters Fields. You’ll find up to 50 sustainable second hand sellers, showcasing their wares from a suitcase. You’ll find Suitcase Sale at that grassy spot right beside Tower Bridge all weekend.

• Music & entertainment on a pedal-powered stage.

In a Field by a Bridge is innovative in concept, proactive in approach and one to watch to set the standard for community engagement and like-minded festivals for the future. Head to London Bridge on Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd July to see for yourself what’s in store.
Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd July 2023 11am – 7pm Potters Fields Park, Tooley St, London, SE1 2QX & St. John’s Churchyard, Fair Street, London SE1 2LD