Askew Road Arts Festival returns for nine days with theme ‘if children are our future’

Gordon Cullen mural at GreensidePrimary School. Photo: Catherine Gratwicke

Exhibitions, workshops and community events will take place across Shepherd’s Bush as the festival returns for the first time since 2024

The Askew Road Arts Festival returns to Shepherd’s Bush from 17 to 25 September, with nine days of exhibitions, workshops and events built around the theme ‘If children are our future’.

Run by the Askew Road Association, the festival takes over galleries, shops, schools and community spaces along and around Askew Road, W12. Following its first festival in 2024, this year’s programme explores how the arts can connect communities, help younger generations confront the challenges ahead and draw on local history and cross-generational talent to create a sense of belonging and optimism.

The festival also comes at a difficult moment for the area. Just weeks ago, a serious incident on Askew Road left the local community shaken, with neighbours and businesses coming together in the aftermath to support those affected. Against that backdrop, the festival’s focus on community, childhood and the future takes on an added resonance.

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The festival opens with Creative Changemakers at Sulgrave Youth Club on Goldhawk Road on Thursday 17 September, from 6.30pm to 8pm. The exhibition brings together artwork made over six weeks by young people from Sulgrave Youth Club, Edward Woods Community Centre and Sands End Art and Community Centre, exploring climate change through sculpture, photography, collage and textiles. It continues on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 September, from 11am to 5pm.

On Friday 18 September, Askew Gallery at 159 Askew Road holds its private view from 6pm to 9pm, launching three exhibitions that run for the rest of the festival. A River Runs Beneath the Street shows new paintings by Mary West and Beryl Robinson, inspired by the lost river said to flow beneath Askew Road. Starch Green Memory Boxes brings together framed assemblages by local women artists, inspired by the tokens left by mothers at the Foundling Museum.

The gallery will also launch Echoes of Childhood, an anthology of nine short stories by emerging local writers, produced through the WILDE Foundation and edited by Rasheda Malcom. The gallery is reached via a spiral staircase with no lift and is not wheelchair accessible.

Maypole dancing at Greenside

One of the festival’s biggest days takes place at Greenside Primary School on Sunday 20 September, when Bouncing Off the Wall! returns alongside Open House Festival tours of the school. The event celebrates the building, designed by architect Ernö Goldfinger, and its Gordon Cullen mural, with graphic arts, workshops, maypole and Morris dancing, a vintage tearoom and activities for children.

Greenside will also host a talk on the school’s post-war architecture, while the James Bond film Goldfinger will be screened there as a tribute to its architect. A premiere screening of an AI-generated Askew Road: Then & Now film, followed by a discussion about AI and childhood, takes place on 21 September.

Other events include a mosaic project on Starch Green designed with pupils from Wendell Park Primary School, wish-tying at newly planted magnolia trees in Becklow Gardens, a local history double bill, a poetry workshop and open mic at Stems & Vines, and the First Step Festival for families with under-fives at the Glasshouses in Ravenscourt Park.

The Glasshouses at RavenscourtPark, venue for the First Step Festivalhosted by Hammersmith GardensCommunity Association

The festival closes on Friday 25 September with a charity auction at Arthur’s Coffee House. Throughout the week, postcard-sized portraits of local trees by artists will be displayed at the café before going under the hammer, with proceeds supporting Hammersmith Community Gardens Association and Sulgrave Youth Club, which is celebrating its centenary this year.

The full festival programme, including booking details for ticketed events, is available at askewroad-w12.co.uk.