Enfield Festival of Industry
We were delighted to be a partner in the Festival of Industry, an exciting cultural programme that celebrated Enfield’s industrial heritage and explored its future industrial identity. The Festival of Industry was delivered by Enfield Council and funded by the Arts Council’s Place Partnership initiative. From July 2023 to 31st March 2024, a wide range of activities took place across the North London borough.
JOURNEY
As part of our festival commission we:
Hosted a Colours & Industry creative conversation at BLOQS - an epic open-access maker space and community in Edmonton N18 - in a yellow shipping container that is the residency space for the Canal & River Trust’s Hinterlands project. The conversation took place during a special open weekend at BLOQS – a triple celebration of the Festival of Industry, Open House Festival and London Design Festival.
Facilitated a creative Exploring Colour workshop at the beautiful Forty Hall - a Jacobean manor with extensive green grounds in the north of the borough. After an interactive colour talk, participants got hands-on creating colourful artworks in a variety of available mediums, reflecting on their own links to colour and industry.
Participated in the Artist Takeover Festival Showcase at the Dugdale Arts Centre in the heart of Enfield Town. We ran a hands-on session, inviting colour stories to be shared creatively.
Conducted extensive field research and interviews into Enfield’s colour connections with industry, and explored future visions and hopes.
OUTCOMES
PALETTE EN:IN is our chromatic ode to industry in Enfield. We distilled our engagement and research into industry in Enfield through the lens of colour, with a special collection of multimedia colours and stories.
Plus there’s a postcard version, available at local libraries and the Dugdale Arts Centre (DAC).
Crimson Portrait
A short film was made to bring one of these colour stories to life: Crimson Portrait is the story of a colour, a dancer, and a place.
Joshua Vendetta Nash, an Edmonton krump dancer and choreographer, embodies a crimson journey of making, with all the passion and dedication required to craft, innovate and create. Director and Producer Cath Carver – Colour Your City Founder, with industrial sublime Director of Photography and Editor Ben Parker.
Filmed at BLOQS, the open-access maker and community space in N18, along local water bodies the Lee Navigation and Pymmes Brook, and the surrounding industrial area which is undergoing total transformation.
The film premiered as part of the Festival of the Lea at BLOQS in July 2024, followed by a Q&A with Joshua Nash and Cath Carver. The artist and community-led cultural festival was co-produced by Hinterlands Enfield from the Canal and River Trust, and BLOQS.
We’d love to screen the film at a few more film festivals and events. Organisations, venues and festivals please get in touch to arrange screenings.
Over the Spring Equinox weekend we produced Earthly Undertones at Forty Hall in collaboration with Enfield Poets.
The experimental installation combined Enfield Poets’ Anthony Fisher’s Londinium poem – in 38 languages, was broadcast on artist/maker Rosie Strickland’s LOSS sound system, with Cath Carver’s text projections, reflecting on two vital aspects of industry: human collaboration and respect for ecology.