Croydon: ‘Culture is now firmly on the agenda’

Croydon’s reputation often precedes it. There is a dissonance between perceptions from the outside and how Croydonians feel about their home borough, which stretches from Crystal Palace, through the ‘Little Manhattan’ of Croydon town centre down to the rolling pastures of Happy Valley and Addington Hills.

This is Croydon, London Borough of Culture 2023, created a platform for our communities and cultural organisations to tell their stories, inviting visitors from London and beyond to discover a different side to the borough. The year-long programme was delivered in a partnership between the council and local arts organisations with 114 partners and over 2,750 creatives involved.

Dedicated strands uncovered the hidden histories of our Global Majority and LGBTQ+ communities and over 16,000 opportunities were taken up by young people to develop creative skills.

Croydon is a place that makes things happen

Following the announcement of the Borough of Culture award in February 2020, Covid and financial pressures at the council quickly sent development plans awry. This is Croydon is probably the only large-scale cultural programme to have been delivered by a local authority under Section 114 notice, effectively bankrupt. Thanks to prudent management, Croydon is no longer operating under that Section, and the council is back on the map for the right reasons.

A new model was needed though, and our cultural sector stepped forward, establishing a formal steering group and advisory groups to take the programme forward, working with the small council team. The case was made that culture had a role to play in supporting Croydon’s recovery from the challenges it was facing. This is Croydon has been a powerful force in achieving that, bringing investment into the borough and growing pride, joy and resilience.

The journey was still challenging. The core team went from twelve people to three, reducing capacity to support the extensive programme. Marketing was particularly impacted as central funds were set aside for overall programme promotion, not individual projects. But that hadn’t been communicated well enough to delivery partners when planning their projects and budgets. The loss of the development period meant little time for groundwork in community engagement, audience development and fundraising.

Experiments with new ways of working

That said, London Borough of Culture provided us with an opportunity to experiment with new ways of working. Throughout the year, learning was shared between partners to support the evolution of the programme.

London Mozart Players, who opened the year with Oratorio of Hope, have fundamentally changed the way they work in Croydon, engaging with new audiences and artforms including developing a film with Croydon poet laureate Shaniqua Benjamin, and delivering a community photography project, 100 Faces of Croydon. Dance company BirdGang developed a new show, Family (Dys)function, which brought together young adults and elders recruited from the community to work with professional dancers.

This is Croydon generated opportunities to leverage national partnerships to promote and develop local artists, including Rural Croydon, a new photography commission by Ameena Rojee, in response to The National Gallery Constable Visits programme which brought The Cornfield to Thornton Heath Library.

It also created opportunities to forge closer links between council teams and cultural partners with a working group established around Turf Projects’ Desire Paths, where nine artists explored creative activation of the borough’s underused spaces. Council planning, placemaking, highways, parks and libraries teams came together with Turf Projects to guide the project and address barriers.

Continues…

Croydon Remix, March 2024, Photo:Vipul Sangoi

Collaboration is central to the legacy

This spirit and commitment to collaboration is central to This is Croydon’s legacy. Within the council, a cohort of cultural attachés have been recruited across the organisation to leverage opportunities and champion arts and culture.

In the sector, the This is Croydon steering group has evolved into a new creative network for the borough to better connect artists, creative organisations, funders and partners and build on Croydon’s track record of delivering great arts and culture.

Four new chairs – all Croydon natives – were elected to lead the network in April 2024, with a strong background in different artforms and deep knowledge and love for Croydon’s people and places. Key priorities for the next year focus on enabling collaborations and partnerships, developing strategic funding bids and forming a governance structure to secure the organisation for the long term.

They hope to create an organisation through which culture in Croydon can continue to flourish; providing support, facilitating connections and advocating for the sector.

This is just the beginning

Culture is now firmly on the agenda in Croydon, enabled by over £2m of grant funding to support legacy. The Young Producers programme, which offered paid placements with organisations running the year, will continue with eight new paid traineeships, and the ongoing youth advisory group ensures young people have a voice in Croydon’s cultural development.

A Global Majority advisory group is also being established as part of the new network alongside the access advisory group which developed the Access Arts Croydon toolkit – a resource to enable cultural organisations of all sizes to develop their programmes in an inclusive way.

Reflecting on a year of culture can feel like an ending. In Croydon, it’s just the beginning. The council, the cultural sector and the borough are all in a radically different place from four years ago. While the challenges that have arisen in that time remain, as a local authority and creative sector we are far better equipped to face them together with creativity, resilience, shared values and collaboration thanks to the galvanising impact of London Borough of Culture.

We are excited to be working together and looking forward with our partners across the cultural network to help make more brilliant arts and culture happen in Croydon.

Stephanie Wilson is Head of Culture, Leisure and Libraries at Croydon Council.
Honey Gabriel is Co-Chair of Culture Croydon, This is Croydon’s legacy body.
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