Holloway Arts Festival

Holloway Arts Festival 2009 was 10 days packed with over 40 events celebrating the vibrant and unique cultural life of Holloway.

This year the festival showcased an exciting mix of music, visual arts, literature, cinema, theatre, dance and comedy featuring local talent alongside international artists. Turner Prize-winning artist Rachel Whiteread, best-selling novelist Marina Lewycka, local author Charlie Higson, singer Sheila Chandra, comedian Richard Herring and Oscar-winning producer of Man on Wire Simon Chinn were just some of the guests appearing this year. Award-winning playwright Diane Samuels ran a writing workshop for adults, and poet (and the festival's new Patron) John Hegley performed an exciting mix of poetry, comedy and music.

Cubitt Education set up a photography studio for the festival as part of their _Picturing Democracy _project - Click here to see some of the photos taken by the young people involved. 

The Big Day Out in Whittington Park on Saturday 4 July featured even more music, street theatre, dance performances, arts and crafts workshops and a wonderful carnival parade!

Holloway Arts Festival 2009 saw the launch of Archway Open House - 29 artists opened their homes and studios to the public, showcasing their work and giving a series of informal talks and local venues in the Archway, Holloway and Tufnell Park area were converted into exhibition spaces.

One of the highlights of the 2009 programme was Reel Islington Screenings - an afternoon of film at one of London's oldest cinemas, the Holloway Odeon, on Sunday 28th June. There were short local films, Islington Reels, followed by Two-Minute Films and more films were showed at the Big Day Out in Whittington Park where there was a screening of short films by independent filmmakers.