London Grilling: John Whelan, Urban Elephant Festival
It’s festival season here in the UK and the capital has certainly seen its fair share of fantastic outdoor events already this summer!
Festivals can, however, burn quite a hole in your pocket, so we were super excited when we heard about a brand new and completely FREE festival that was coming to London this July, called Urban Elephant.
Urban Elephant, is set to be a celebration of the arts. It will be taking place in Elephant and Castle over the last weekend of July on the 29th, 30th and 31st. The festival will showcase the best in street art and performances with 49 shows on 8 different outside spaces over the 2 and a half days of the festival. The acts will be performing circus, dance, comedy and puppetry from around the world, using creative interventions to connect the new and old high streets of the fast-changing area, while welcoming old and young alike to experience the vibrant high streets of Castle Square, Nursery Road Park, Walworth Square, Bagshot Street, Sayer Street, Elephant Park, HEJ, and Elephant Arcade.
The World On One Street
Urban Elephant has been co-curated by two creatives in the local community; Artistic Director of The People’s Company, John Whelan, who has worked across London and Liverpool delivering theatre and community arts and Mike Raffone, who has vast entertainment experience with comedy and circus, and has toured nationally and internationally as a street performer.
We were lucky enough to catch up with John, for a London Living exclusive. Read on to find out everything you need to know about #UrbanEleFest in this week’s London Grilling.
Tell us a bit about yourself; where you are from, and what you do.
I'm originally from Manchester and I grew up in a place called Hattersley, which is just outside of Manchester. My biggest passion in life is creativity and art. I believe everyone has a creative door or a creative window that they can access, and art is what makes us human. It's our humanity.
As soon as our mental capacity got to a certain level, we started drawing and painting on walls to express ourselves, to emote and to feel.
My focus revolves around empowering communities through art and through creativity. I think that’s how we humanise ourselves, to celebrate our diversity, our richness, to really empower ourselves and give ourselves a voice.
I set my own theater company up based out of the Southwark Playhouse and wanted to create a free event on the south side of the city for people to have a platform to express themselves. This led to me setting up People’s Company and as the name suggests it's all about people. It gives people a voice, a platform, and it's their company; I'm just the artistic director that helps steer, develop, and enrich it.
I love to animate spaces, places, and lots of street-based festivals. I helped project manage the opening of the new Elephant Park, for example and I’ve completed lots of animated tours. I've brought history to life. I’ve also developed a big thing called the Kaleidoscope Festival, which is a big festival of diversity and that’s going from strength to strength.
What was the inspiration behind Urban Elephant?
The inspiration for the Urban Elephant Festival is again, I love to animate spaces and places, connecting people and connecting communities. There has been a lot of change and a lot of regeneration in the area! I think regeneration is great if we connect the new communities and the traditional communities together. Urban Elephant was developed to bring the community together through art, through creativity, and through a festival that's free for people. So that was the inspiration really.
We want to promote local talent and rather than traveling further afield, it’s about saying, well, why don't you go to East Street Market? Why don't you go down to Bagshot street and see the amazing, wonderful Columbian restaurant Amigos.
We thought about how we could develop the local area, our own microcosm to develop, and so along with the Elephant and Castle Business Forum, we questioned ‘how do we make it a destination?’
We wanted the space to be somewhere to spend your leisure time, to be creative, to have fun, all these really important things. There are many amazing creatives in this area and it's about showcasing that.
Can you tell us more about the sustainability of the festival?
We want to promote cycling and walking! For example, on Bagshot Street, at the end of the festival, the last stop is Community Cycleworks, servicing people's bikes free. How great is that? How much is that going to save you!
We’ve also got cargo bikes supplied by Pedal Me, which are going along the route as well. The A-boards are made out of recycled timber so we can use those again, we've got flags that are being made out of recycled materials and we've got a couple of schools who are helping to create these in collaboration with artists using keywords, like connecting, community and diversity. We wanted the community to own it and feel like it's theirs. We need to reclaim lots of these streets. We need to change how we live our lives.
Is there one stand-out act you're looking forward to seeing?
Do you know what I'm really, really excited about? We’ve got a lot of community members involved and we've got Super Arts coming along and they're great. Susan, the artistic lead, and her mother set up the dance company back in the 1950s in Walworth. For all those years they've been empowering young people to express themselves through dance, drama, and musical theater. They’re going to be performing some urban dance and I love the fact that we're really representing groups like that as well within the festival. I'd highlight that.
Who else is involved in the festival?
I'm a great believer in creating a consortium of like-minded individuals and bringing people together around an idea, that's how you create change. I've worked quite closely with a guy called Mike, who is the artistic director and has been a massive support in booking acts. He has years of experience working with street entertainment and he also writes his own plays alongside being an international artist. His address book has been fantastic in getting some of these artists involved. We then approached the Elephant and Castle Business Forum who jumped at the opportunity to be involved so they’ve been great!
Susie from The Means, a place making organization, has been amazing at going out there and speaking to businesses to get their involvement buy in, which has been crucial to the project. Southwark Council, the high street recovery, who have funded the project which is all part of their strategy for post COVID, how high streets recover. Plus Diana from Get Living who is fantastic at hustling the community and knowing who we need to plug into!
As well as the funding from the council I've created a consortium of funders with some of the key local developers which includes Get Living, Notting Hill Genesis and Lendlease. I bought those three together around this project, which is the first time these three companies have been brought together to work on a project of ours. I think that's really important, especially as an area going through change and regeneration, that we work together to collaborate and work with the local community.
What do you love most about Elephant & Castle?
Ooh, I'd probably say it's the diversity. Whenever you walk around the street, you hear so many different languages, you see so many different shades of skin, you see so many different sexualities.
It’s really just a patchwork of people, cultures, everything, it's a real melting pot. And I love that.
Do you have any other events coming up?
At the moment we have around 17 popup events happening over the weekend but it’s just getting bigger and bigger!
We've got a mural artist in residence at the Elephant Arcade, a film night at Hotel Elephant on Saturday evening, Mercato and TAM are linking together to put on some music events, Rude N Boomin are doing an Urban Picnic outside of their business on both Saturday and Sunday with outdoor musicians, Louie Louie have a jazz and soul event. Ok Grow who are based just off Bagshot Street, will open the community gardens over the weekend and they've got lots of mini events happening, again, promoting sustainability and growing your own. There will also be a mini craft market where some of the local businesses are going to be highlighted.
We have so much happening but not only events, there are so many offers as well. All of the traders in Castle Square have got 10% discount that weekend and in Elephant Arcade, it's between 20% and 70% promotion in amazing businesses.
There are loads of different promotional product offers, food and drink offers and events happening!
We will have a little elephant logo sprayed in temporary eco chalk in the windows of business just to denote that and demonstrate which businesses are taking part.
Where is your favourite summer spot in London?
A favorite London summer spot? I've got lots! I'd probably say sat in Burgess Park. I love just sitting on a hill, sometimes reading a book, sunbathing, and just listening to tunes through my headphones. I normally like to try and get myself on a hill away from people where I could just have a little bit of solitude but see people around and watch.
Could you describe your perfect London day?
My perfect London day is… well, I've just moved to Bermondsey, so my perfect London day is probably to wake up and have a nice coffee on my balcony. Then I would probably go for a mooch down by the river. Probably cycle up towards Greenwich, have a nice bike ride on my way back maybe treat myself by popping into Waitrose and then come home and just have a nice meal and a glass of wine.
Any final comments?
It’s the democratization of art. We're in a cost-of-living crisis. How much does it usually cost to go to a festival? This is a free festival. It will cost you nothing to attend. For me, it's about giving people a helping hand. It's about all the offers for not only the attendees but to help boost the local business and connect the community. It's about celebrating everything. I've spoken about the richness in the area’s diversity and it's about creating those pathways.
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