Culture Jam is taking place on Coulgate Street in Brockley this Saturday (August 23) and is the first to come from an event series over the next few months which has been organised by parlez and aims to celebrate Lewisham’s cultural heritage and vibrant communities.
Louis Edwards, who opened parlez, an independent restaurant and bar serving Persian-inspired dishes with fellow co-founder Matt Ward in 2017, said the series represented an opportunity to embrace change in a positive way by making sure local people feel included and not left behind.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “We want to make sure we are supporting as many businesses and organisations that remind and celebrate what Lewisham is.
“We’ve got this thing with gentrification and that being a contentious issue and this being an opportunity where people feel included in the change and not pushed out – which is kind of where the problem is.”
DJ Melvina Moves, who also runs the community arts company and consultancy, Nzinga Dance and features on the Culture Jam programme, said: “A lot of what we do we uses arts to bring history to life through dance, music or theatre – it’s just nice to be here.
“Culture Jam is helping local businesses, I’m a local business, so we have the stall holders who are going to come and trade here they’re all from the Brockley area, the artists are from this area so it’s good to come together and do something.”
There is hope that if the pilot series is successful, it can be replicated in other parts of the borough.
The series is being supported by Lewisham Council, which has provided a grant as part of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund which has gone towards temporary lighting, entertainment equipment and street furniture.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, parlez benefited from a retail and hospitality grant as well as the council temporarily pedestrianising part of Coulgate Street, which was the first of its kind to happen in Lewisham.
Following its success, this part of Coulgate Street remains pedestrianised today and is where the event series will take place.
Louis told the LDRS: “Eight months ago we went back to the council and said ‘you shut the road, this can’t be the end of the story because there’s so much more you can do now’.
“We said let us show you how we can use the street more creatively and the council came back to us two or three months ago and started talking about a grant and that’s how it got us to where we are now, so it’s been a really nice story where parlez has led on it but very much with people supporting it the whole way through so we haven’t helicoptered anything in.”
Louis says he was also left inspired by Jason Page, who is originally from Brooklyn, which has seen huge changes through gentrification, but now calls South East London his home.
Jason managed the Migration Museum in Lewisham until recently and is involved in community development and cultural programming.
He runs the platform, South East Salon which acts as a space which brings creatives and South East London communities together, and hosted a series of engaging talks at parlez towards the end of last year.
Louis said: “I know Lewisham has got all this development going on, we hope that this is a case study to show how it can be done in a way where people can get taken with it as opposed to being pushed out of it, that’s the ambition with it.”
Ese Erheriene, Cabinet Member for Business, Jobs and Skills at Lewisham Council, said: “As part of our work to build an inclusive and forward-looking economy, partnerships and local initiatives like this play a key role in growing our business base, supporting cultural, creative and evening activities, boosting the local economy and ultimately showing that Lewisham is an attractive place to live, work and visit.
“Lewisham’s mix of cultures, creativity and independent businesses is what makes it a truly special place and parlez’s cultural programming strategy for this grant is rooted in celebrating this diversity.”
