Circular Square is our 2025 activation of Peckham Square, part of Memories for the Future, our ongoing programme exploring stories of migration and belonging in Peckham.
Running from 12 to 5pm, this free event invites local people to explore the connection between people, place and the natural world, through food, conversation and creative activities for all ages.
The day’s programme includes:
- Creative activities led by a local artist, exploring reuse, repair and the natural world
- Vegan food from the Sisterhood Supperclub Collective, a Southwark-based social enterprise using cooking to connect women through diaspora heritages
- A makers market featuring small local producers and growers, with a focus on female and global majority-led enterprises. This builds on the popularity of last year’s honey tasting and tea workshops, and offers new ways to connect with local food, craft and environmentally friendly practices
- A chance to contribute to our community oral history archive, part of Memories for the Future, focused on collecting and sharing stories of migration in Peckham
Circular Square supports our wider commitment to reconnect intergenerational communities to shared spaces, helping to strengthen civic pride and celebrate overlapping heritages, especially those at risk of being displaced.
The event is free, fully accessible and open to everyone.
Building on several years of working closely with our community partners, our starting point was Rye Lane’s iconic “Aunties”, the women business leaders who exemplify the realities of migration into Britain and the experience of rebuilding lives as part of a diaspora. Memories for the Future works to cherish and learn from these at-risk histories which illuminate Britain’s complex relationships with the rest of the world, and the foundational influence of these women on the communities living/working on Rye Lane.
This programme identifies, records, preserves and shares oral histories of Peckham aunties in conversation with younger generations in their families and communities to tell a multi-dimensional story of post-colonial commonwealth migration, British community responses, diaspora experience, and how Peckham became the mini-metropolis it is today. The outcomes of these conversations inform learning, family and community activities and a series of artist commissions, talks and events.
Memories for the Future is made possible with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, United St Saviours and the London Borough of Southwark’s Culture Together, Neighbourhoods and Cultural Celebrations funds and generous support from Arts Council England. Memories for the Future runs from June 2024 through to October 2025.
