Bold Tendencies

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ID: a number of young school children are jumping between silver curved lines painted directly onto a concrete rooftop. In the background there are a number of colour artworks installed on the rooftop.

CREATIVE LEARNING

Creative Learning is a year-round programme of free and accessible initiatives that foster space for local groups and individuals to imagine, create, appreciate the arts, and exercise the right to joy.

We work closely with groups and organisations in Peckham, Southwark and beyond, including schools and families, community centres, youth clubs, health and social services.

Designed in direct response to local needs and interests, we aim to maximise the degree to which groups and individuals access, inform and participate in our work, centring everyday creativity and community wellbeing.

☞ Sign up for Creative Learning updates.

☞ Fill out our Expression of Interest to book.

2025 CREATIVE LEARNING PROGRAMME

Our 2025 Déjà Vu programme will feature four Ask the Artist sessions with commissioned visual artists Emii Alrai, Mac Collins, Raheel Khan and Richard Dean Hughes.

Backstage Pass sessions with The Colin Currie Group, Eve Stainton, Sheku Kanneh-Mason & Saeunn Thorsteindottír and The Moog Lab will provide one-of-kind experiences with contemporary artists working across the disciplines of live performance.

We invite audiences to Public Rehearsals of Sergei Rachmaninoff: The Complete Piano Concertos by Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Ryan Wang, Junyan Chen & Boris Giltburg and The Goldberg Variations by Jean Rondeau. With fully subsidised Community Tickets allocated for all live events for local community partners in Southwark.

Come and Sing sessions for local residents and community groups will culminate in participation in The Bold Chorus performance with Oliver Leith.

Echoes of, a series of activations that centre and amplify the voices of the next generation, will reflect on the legacies of Edward Said, J Dilla, Susan Sontag and MF Doom.

We will deliver our third year of Creative Partnership with The Nest for a summer-long season of creative and wellbeing programme for local young people.

Creative Workshops and Artwork Tours take place throughout the season, alongside Community Coffee Mornings. 

This year we are piloting an Educators Curator Tour & Recce, offering insight into the art works content and site before bringing a group.

For more information on our activities, please scroll down.

To get involved with our programme, please fill out the above form.

ACTIVITIES

Creative Workshops: bookable workshops for all ages that bring our site and artworks to life.

Ask the Artist: in person and online conversations with leading visual artists. 

Artist Placements: multi-session programmes led by contemporary artists in partner organisations.

Creative Partnerships: co-designed, cross-sector, summer-long creative programmes with Bold Tendencies.

Backstage Pass: one-of-a-kind creative sessions with live performers.

Public Rehearsals: behind-the-scenes access to world-class live performance. 

Community Coffee Morning: a social space for coming together over free tea, coffee and refreshments, followed by a tour of the Visual Arts Commissions.

Educators Curator Tour & Recce: insight and entry points into the art works content and site before bringing a group.

Echoes Of: carves out space for the new generation, to respond to and activate the work of iconic cultural figures featured in our Live Events programme.

It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to work with local community groups and organisations as well as world-class musicians and artists that enhance the cultural capital of our students exposing them to new music and ideas that they wouldn’t otherwise experience. For our students it also allows them to see people who look like them and represent them in creative fields.

– Secondary School Teacher, Harris Academy Peckham, 2025

It was more than just a cultural outing; it was a lively testament to music’s power as a universal language. For neurodiverse individuals and all of us, it was a joyful reminder of how music can connect, communicate, and inspire us all.

– Staff member, The Neurodiversity Family Hub, Backstage Pass: Mediterranean Youth Orchestra,  July 2024

I learnt that art comes in all different shapes and sizes and that there isn’t such a thing as good or bad art. Art doesn’t have to be something you can see clearly. It can be the way you interpret it.

– Coin Street Youth Group August, 2023

CREATIVE WORKSHOPS

Creative Workshops are available on and off site, and provide opportunities to explore Bold Tendencies through hands-on, site-specific creative activities.

We adapt each workshop, planning it according to the needs and interests of the participating group. Examples include:

Skyline Stories is a workshop rooted in imagination, comprising creative writing and observational drawing.

All Around Agora centres play: a series of trust and guidance exercises leads into participants coming up with their own games. 

Making Miniatures is based in the Derek Jarman Garden at Bold Tendencies. It focuses on nature, habitat vs. made-homes, and botany.

ASK THE ARTIST

Ask the Artist sessions mobilise the wide ranging and inspiring artists Bold Tendencies commission as part of their summer programme.

The sessions give local groups and individuals a chance to tour the site and engage in an informal and generative conversation with a visual artist.

Creating a space for critical thinking and exchange, the sessions are suited to a variety of audiences.

Photography by Jed Welland

ARTIST PLACEMENTS

Artist Placements partner leading contemporary artists with local community organisations and schools.

These multi-session programmes explore a particular subject relevant to the partner organisation and are designed to foster a space for collaboration and skills development.

For example, in 2023 Year 10 GCSE students at Harris Boys Academy East Dulwich were partnered with artist Jeremy Deller, exploring what art might look and feel like beyond the curriculum.

Workshops included household artistic interventions, debates, presentations and off-site visits to alternative art spaces.

 

Photography by Deniz Guzel

Rarely do students and teachers have the privilege of collaborating with artists of Jeremy Deller’s calibre. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Bold Tendencies and the invaluable contributions of Misty in her role as the Creative Learning Producer, the Art students I teach were granted an extraordinary opportunity. The impact of this project, though executed within a brief timeframe, has been profound and enduring. The students’ encounters with Jeremy Deller and the resulting discussions have ignited a newfound passion for the visual arts, a career path previously foreign to them. We are immensely grateful for the transformative experience of working with Bold Tendencies.

— Joseph Murrary, Head of Art, Harris Boys Academy East Dulwich

Creative Partnerships

Creative Partnerships expand and build upon our relationships with local organisations and community members.

In collaboration with the partner organisation, we work together to co-design summer-long programme of creative activity, incorporating workshops, activities and talks.

Creative Partnerships allow new connections to be built through multiple intersectional strands and cross-sector collaboration.  

For 2025, we partner for the third year with The Nest – a wellbeing hub in Peckham for young people and families in Southwark.

Over 5 weeks, we will run weekly workshops with up to 20 young people between the ages of 11 – 16 years, from local Southwark schools.

Photography by Erez Molinas

ID: a full classroom of young children are stood in a circle inside a concrete room with rubber flooring, making an active pose. They are led by an adult workshop leader.

BACKSTAGE PASS

Backstage Pass sessions offer the chance to gain behind the scenes access to world-class performing artists, working across a variety of disciplines.

Sessions are a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding and insight into the journey, ideas and lived experience of performers.

Each Backstage Pass consists of an element of live performance, followed by a facilitated Q&A and/or participatory workshop.

Usually, I am very apprehensive about attending events like this due to the fact I never feel they engage with both parents and young people equally. I was pleasantly surprised, as i found that both parents and young people including myself and my daughter were actively involved in the conversation and able to ask questions and take part in activities throughout.

— Parent, Backstage Pass with Caleb Femi, 2023

Community Coffee Mornings

Our Community Coffee Mornings are a social space for coming together with free tea, coffee and refreshments, followed by a tour of the Visual Arts Commissions. 

In 2024 we piloted two Community Coffee Mornings, partnering with the Parent Action Group and with PECAN charity who gave alongside refreshments, kindly provided by Franks Cafe.

This year we will be hosting two Community Coffee Mornings on: 

  • Thursday 22 May 
  • Thursday 24 July

Echoes Of…

An expanded multi-session initiative that takes participants on a deep dive into the surrounding world of ideas and work of  iconic historical cultural figures. Tethered to an event in our Live Events programme and its accompanying ‘Listening Room’, where audiences are invited to select and play from a curated collection of records in our Straw Auditorium. 

Echoes Of carves out space for the new generation, to respond to and activate the work of iconic cultural figures featured in our Live Events programme. It  takes the form of a series of events that delve into the content, ideas, and works of the selected artist, fostering new discourse, narratives, and ideas which culminate into a recorded sound piece.

In 2024 we hosted Echoes of Baldwin, a weekend of events amplifying the voices of the next generation. The activations included The Welcome Table, led by Akhera Williams, and Little Man Little Man drawing workshop led by Esme Wedderburn.

This year we will be responding to the work of Edward Said, J Dilla, MF DOOM and Susan Sontag.

PUBLIC REHEARSALS

Public Rehearsals are open invitations to see live performers in action.

Breaking down the barrier between audience and artist, community members are invited to witness the rehearsal process of world-renowned artists in a relaxed setting.

During rehearsals, audience members are free to move around as they need, allowing those with access requirements or those who may feel less at ease in traditional performance settings to experience and enjoy the arts in a comfortable space.

Photography by Dan John Lloyd

OUR 2025 CREATIVE LEARNING PROGRAMME IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY

 

 

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Registered Office: 4 Holly Grove, London SE15 5DF
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