Peckham Peace Festival 19/8/12 www.peckhamspace.com
Peckham Peace Month (8 August – 2 September)
Sunshine Ska and sewing. Riding on that post-Olympic energy, this chilled-out Sunday afternoon at Peckham Square was a blissful space to hang-out on the hottest day of the year. It felt like being at a major music festival; with music, food, mellow ambience, stalls and tactile activities to keep your hands happy. But the party was on a human-scale and I was surrounded by my local community, people I recognise and will see again. Through simple activities I was happy chatting to everybody and anybody.
Activities included ‘sewing’ a message onto a felt square, as a contribution to the growing Peckham Peace Blanket by Mhairi Macaulay, a student at Camberwell College of Arts. The absorbing and connecting activity of sewing collectively included all ages; men and women equally (helping each other to thread needles, inspire etc). Sitting together cocooned in the ebb and flow of chatting/silence/joyful music, my mind idled in happy memories of fuzzy felt, school sewing and my mother’s ever-busy hands. The final blanket will include contributions from over 1000 people. Thinking about my three participation words (access, hierarchy and exchange), this event gets top marks!
The blanket was inspired by the Peckham Peace Wall by Garudio Studiage – a response to the summer riots of 2011. The Wall features 4000 original post-it messages that were displayed on boards covering broken windows in the area. The original project was started by four members of the Peckham Shed Theatre Company, who felt motivated to do something; to get out onto the streets of Peckham and unite the community in positive, peaceful action. Armed with felt-tip pens and post-it notes, they spent the day encouraging locals to think of positive things about Peckham by creating the ‘Why we love Peckham wall.’ The first board covered a window outside Poundland on Rye lane, and the Wall eventually grew to fill seven hoardings.
Reading the post-it notes is a heartwarming experience; the individual handwriting, complete with spelling errors and slang portrays the individual voices, with a collective strength and vision to make meaningful change. My favourite post-it was:
‘Peckham is a love place. Don’t mash it up’.
Feels like the Peckham Phoenix is rising from the ashes.
