By Roger Williams | In Dulwich on View  Photo: Benedict O’Looney

The Peckham Society and Southwark Council recently celebrated the beginning of the restoration of the Grand Waiting Room at Peckham Rye Station. Peckham Rye’s handsome Victorian station has been struggling to be seen since buildings were thrown up in the square in front of it in the 1930s. Stand and look at the station now, and you will see two extruding blocks, one on each side of the main entrance. The one on the south side contains a stone and iron spiral staircase, the timbers of its floors rotten, the plaster walls crumbling in chunks, and an arrow pointing upwards, graffitied in black, with the words “To the Billiard Hall”. The billiard hall operated here for 60 years until it closed in 1960, after which all was silence.

On Friday, July 16, after half a century in the dark, the “billiard hall” opened its doors to reveal the station’s Old Waiting Room, a magnificent space with a high vaulted ceiling and four open fire places that stretches the length of the building above the ticket office and is today accessed from Platform 3, on the Victoria line. Read more …

by LAUREN HOUSSIN formerly on laurenetcaetera.blogspot.com  22 December 2009

From New York’s Meatpacking district to Berlin’s Mitte or Paris’ Montmartre, dirty corners of cities all face the same destiny: they are pioneered by young artists, and later colonized by the trendy bourgeoisie. The rents soar, and the starving bohemia has yet to migrate again.  Take the case of London. After Ladbroke Grove in the 1970s and Camden in the 1980s, the East End was conquered in the late 90s. By the early noughties, Brick Lane, Shoreditch, even Dalston were out of price. Artists soon decided to move south of the river, to Peckham. Known to most people for its gang warfare and knife crime rates rather than its culture, Peckham is home to a burgeoning art scene. Because of its empty industrial spaces and proximity to art schools, the bloody district is now an area of choice for young up and coming artists.

“An advantage of working as an artist in Peckham is that there is an audience for art in the area,” said 26-year-old Bobby Dowler, whose paintings are currently showcased at the Hannah Barry Gallery, one of the great pioneers of the area’s scene and one of the most dynamic new art galleries in Britain. “There’s an extremely good dialogue between people,” the young artist added, “and a seriousness about what they’re doing, a kind of belief that it’s important.”

Located in a former cricket bat factory at the end of an industrial road populated by factories, the Hannah Barry Gallery was invited at this year’s Venice Biennale to stage the first Peckham Pavilion. Ms. Barry founded her eponymous gallery in 2008 with Sven Mündner, and works with 32 artists, all aged between 21 and 35. Whether they are showing paintings, installations or photographies, their aim is to always show the work in-depth, in order to best represent the progress of the artist.

“Peckham is the land of freedom and opportunity,” said Ms. Barry. A hallmark of the area’s art scene is its large-scale and high-reaching projects: the spaces available can accommodate shows and works that could not take place in typical West End or East End galleries.

“Everbody has their own possibilities,” she explained, “and for us the space that we have here allowed us to do the shows that we wanted to do. It would have been a different price in the West End, and perhaps not the kind of price that a young gallery can afford. Being in Peckham has enabled us to do things on a scale that we wouldn’t have been able to do over there.”

Although East London is an established part of the city’s gallery circuit and houses the highest population of artists in Europe, it is no longer what it used to be. Its charm and character seem to be lost since property developers have taken advantage of its popularity. As rents have rocketed, many younger artists have in fact headed south of the river in areas like Peckham, where rents are more affordable.

Situated inbetween two of London’s leading art colleges, Goldsmiths School of Arts and Camberwell College, plenty of young, artistic and imaginative people are challenging the negative stereotype that is still all too-often applied to the area. “A lot of students live in the area and continue living in the area after they graduate. I have done so and I graduated in 1998,” said Emily Druiff, Director of the arts initiative Peckham Space.

Through annual commissions, workshops and public events, Peckham Space supports art practice that forges sustainable links between the arts and the local community in south east London, and aims to provide professional development opportunities for artists. The organisation is also plans to open an art venue in a raw space in Spring 2010, showcasing artworks made in conjunction with and in response to the locals of Peckham.

Peckham is home to 25,000 people from all over the world, and has the highest proportion of people born elsewhere compared to the rest of Southwark. One of the best metaphors of Peckham is the Bussey building, that from the outside looks like a run-down factory in a dodgy back alley. But penetrating the almost historic monument -it was built in the early 20^th century- and looking closer, it is occupied by an aggregate of over 60 artists, faith groups, exhibition spaces  and small businesses, all existing and working happily alongside each other.

Turner Prize winner Antony Gormley and his fellow Royal Academician Tom Phillips, who both have their studios in Peckham, decided a few years ago with a clutch of others to do an artistic makeover of the run-down neighbourhood’s landscape. With this street art initiative, residents now enjoy some of the most original street murals, barcode-patterned pavements in the city and twisted or heart-shaped lampposts by the fashion designer Zandra Rhodes.

Just a step out of Peckham Rye station is a wooden sculpture of a phoenix with splatters of paint on it. According to legend, the Phoenix is reduced to ashes at the end of its life, from which a new, young phoenix is reborn to live again. Using the metaphor of destruction and creation, the sculpture aims to communicate a message of rebirth among the community and the role played by the young art scene in this rejuvenation.

Most people will hear the word ”Peckham” and they will just picture graffiti, dirty pavements and urinated phone boxes. But aside from the drama that the South London area evokes, a few pioneers have managed to raise up the profile and status of the place for everyone, bringing new audiences to the area, creating people of different ages and backgrounds mixing in the same place and causing the area to now easily betray people’s expectations.

Special Report: Contemporary Art New York Times  By Alice Pfeiffer: October 14, 2009
Peckham, a run-down district of London, south of the Thames, is said to have the capital’s highest concentration of knife crime, hairdressers and gospel churches.
Now, add up-and-coming artists: in easy reach of some of the capital’s leading art schools, the area’s low prices and vast, empty industrial spaces are attracting experimental avant-garde collectives, studios and galleries — a countercultural challenge to the established North-of-the-river world of the Frieze art fair and the gentrified East End.
“Peckham is the land of the free. It’s like a blank canvas,” said Hannah Barry, an enterprising 26-year-old who founded her eponymous gallery last year in a warehouse of a former cricket bat factory.  At the end of an industrial road populated by factories and faith groups, Ms. Barry and her co-director Sven Mündner, 31 — both graduates of Cambridge — put on 15 to 20 shows a year, showcasing young emerging artists. Ms. Barry and Mr. Mündner have also put on an annual sculpture show since 2006, on the roof of an abandoned parking garage nearby. “We felt there was room for an ambitious sculpture park in London,” Ms. Barry said. In June, she and Mr. Mündner took Peckham to a global audience, with a show, the “Peckham Pavilion,” on the fringes of the Venice Biennale.  read more …

From Evening Standard By Tim Burrows 20.08.09

When Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas opened The Shop in 1993 in what is now Redchurch Street in E2, they probably didn’t realise that they were leading the cultural shift that would hit its peak in 2000 with the arrival of Jay Jopling’s Hoxton Square gallery and result in a decade of the East End’s dominance over art, music, fashion and all things trendy. But 10 years is long enough and a Peckham collective of artists, writers and musicians called Off Modern think it’s time to challenge that monopoly… … the current focal point of the Peckham scene is not a shop, but a café. Behind a defunct Woolworths, on top of a neglected 10-storey car park and multiplex set back from the main drag of Rye Lane, is Frank’s Café and Campari Bar. Designed by Paloma Gormley (daughter of Antony) and Lettice Drake, the visitor-friendly pop-up café-bar is actually one of the exhibits in Hannah Barry Gallery’s Bold Tendencies III show.  Read more http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/article-23734817-details/Peckham+challenging+Hoxton+for+art/article.do

Move over Hackney! London’s next creative hotspot, signalled by this bold rooftop sculpture park, could be south of the river, reports Hermione Hoby, Observer
It’s a hot Tuesday night, and 1,000 twentysomethings have elected to spend it in a multi-storey municipal car park in Peckham. It’s a crowd impressive enough to match the big, bold artworks they’re here to see. A sculpture park on the roof of the 10-storey building in Rye Lane forms the highlight of the third Bold Tendencies exhibition from the Hannah Barry Gallery, which has joined forces with four local artists’ groups for a formidable show.
Coming so soon after the success of Barry’s Peckham Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, if anything can substantiate claims of an influential youthful art “scene” in Peckham, this is it. Among the works is James Balmforth’s Failed Obelisk, with its detached apex flailing on a spring, and a ziggurat-like piece from Molly Smyth called Motion Towards Collapse: both names suggest defectiveness but the pieces couldn’t look more assured of their own clout and strength. The rooftop also boasts a cafe and bar designed by recent architecture graduates Lettice Drake and Paloma Gormley - daughter of Antony Gormley, whose cast-iron bollards (part of Southwark council’s Peckham regeneration programme) grace the nearby Bellenden Road. read more…

Report from Southwark News 21 November 2008: http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/00,news,13050,440,00.htm

“NEW DESIGNS for Peckham Rye train station have been unveiled as the council presses ahead with plans to regenerate the area, despite the body blow that no tram will come there. A summit of key figures will sit down tomorrow and thrash out how the ambitious policy will be funded, with a discussion on how pressure can be applied to Network Rail to open up its purse strings.

If the plans were approved, areas at the front and back of Peckham Rye station will be transformed into a piazza leading onto Rye Lane, and a market area at the rear using the existing arches as access points. The meeting, led by Peckham Community Council, aims to change the instant impression people get when they walk out of the station. It will also attempt to make the station the focal point of the area.

Source: Southwark News

The idea has been mooted for sometime but a council spokesman said this meeting and the plans were hoped to be a catalyst for the future. ” Read more …

“… The Bussey building is still buzzing with lively commercial activity, as part of Copeland Industrial Park. This is tucked away behind Bournemouth Road and Rye Lane, and hosts many small businesses, including some 100 artists, several faith groups, and arts, music and exhibition spaces. These contribute to the emerging Copeland Cultural Quarter. It is part of the large seven acre site, stretching from Rye Lane to Brayards Road, designated for demolition for the Cross River Tram depot.

However, it is a strategic site in the heart of the town centre, and could have a different and better future. The historic buildings could be integrated in new developments, for modern businesses and social uses. This, together with opening up the site, by creating small squares, courtyards and passage ways, would include the Quarter in the town centre. A range of ideas about how this might be done has been developed… ” (from SE15 The Independent Magazine for Peckham and Nunhead November 2008) Read more… (image file, PDF file)

Cascade, the news journal of Community Action Southwark, writes in the August/September 2008 issue: “The first-ever South City Radio broadcast from the Bussey building took place on Saturday 19 July. The broadcast programme with a panel and a paricipating public audience had a lively debate on Peckham’s contribution to London’s cultural life, and the natural organic growth of cultural life in the part of the town centre in and around the Bussey building… ” Read more…

Southwark News reports: ‘A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the depot for the Cross River Tram could end up just off the Old Kent Road.

Transport for London (TfL) had been reluctant to release the alternative sites which could park up to 48 trams, after an inspection of the favoured Peckham site stated that it should not house all the trams and that inspectors “..were not convinced that the site is the only feasible option for a single or principal tram depot.”.

The response to campaign group Peckham Vision showed that a site on Ilderton Road, near Millwall’s ground The Den, could be an alternative to the Peckham site and is so large it could house all the trams.

This week Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor, has also released plans to place an alternative tram route along Old Kent Road which will roughly follow the route of the current 453 bus to Deptford, and will connect with the Cross River Tram at Waterloo. Read more …