Our Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ One Sunday Roast) launches on Thursday and we are currently working assiduously on this highly scientific yet wholly subjective list. Ahead of that, we’ve unearthed a lovely Vimeo video we’d like to share with you
As Elephant and Castle is now undergoing a full on ‘Vauxhallization’ we’ve been recently waxing nostalgic for the old shopping centre. It was like that kooky great aunt you used to have in Leeds – you visited it only when you absolutely had to, was past its prime, and very fond of pink. And before you know it, they’re gone forever.
It’s OK to feel a bit conflicted about the shopping centre. On the one hand it harks back to a more innocent form of independent retail in which shopkeepers knew your name and you could be sexually aroused by a massage chair. But it was also a dangerous place rife with drugs. And not the drugs your kooky aunt took.
This uplifting and artistic video is from 2010 and makes you realise the centre was more like a community meeting for many.
Now that you’ve completed that new year’s resolution of running around Kennington Park six times, it’s time to work on your grey matter. It’s that time in the Greater Kennington cultural calendar (it’s a thing, trust us) for us to enlighten you about the ‘Classical Vauxhall’ series of concerts and events at various places in Vauxhall, Kennington and Oval from 29 Feb to 3 March. The press release boldly describes it as ‘a four day festival of live music and song, featuring a diverse, world class line up featuring acclaimed musicians and captivating performances’.
The concept behind these five concerts is to put on shows that are varied, lively, and accessible to people who (like us) are not habitues of the Royal Opera House and might otherwise be a bit intimidated by this genre. The event is being co-hosted with the London Philharmonic Orchestra with each night set to a theme, the themes being classical soul, mythical events, piano vs. violin, and a cappela singing. There are also a few events geared to kiddos.
Classical Vauxhall are also laying on two walks which sound fantastic. One is called ‘Astronauts, Aeronauts, Animals & Agents’ and another about the music of Vauxhall. There is also a workshop about historic dance. And please note that ‘historic dance’ probably refers to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and not the time in 2005 you ripped off your shirt in a ketamine haze at Fire nightclub.
The director of the festival and the brains behind the whole shebang is Fiachra Garvey and he is joined by artists such as Elena Urioste, China Moses, Mary Collins, Tony Tixier and Adjoa Andoh. To be honest we have no idea who any of these people are – But– we have seen some of their work on YouTube and it’s beautiful. Elena and her amazing violin are featured here. Tickets are £22.15 for the concerts so not exactly cheap, but a great way to support local culture and artists who are also doing outreach at schools. Some folks from KR towers went in 2023 and they described it as both amazing and great fun. A nice way to get a little culture in your life without venturing much further than your local pub.
Only 10 days to go until our ‘Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington (+ 1 Sunday Roast)’ countdown, people!
Do you like knitwear? Do you like exhibition spaces that are never boring? Then you’re in luck as we just saw the thought provoking show ‘Holes’ at Gasworks Gallery in Oval by UK based Ukrainian artist Anna Perach
Using the medium of knitted wool, Perach explores how the female body is viewed by a male patriarchy as something that transgresses nature and morality, a good example being 17th century witch trials. This is about control, and Perach most vividly captures this in a richly decorated anatomical Venus sculpture in the middle of the room. Even without interpretation, the textiles are a sight to behold and even the doors are knitted. We suggest handling the doors carefully to avoid being told off, as we were.
At its core, Holes is about women having agency and gaining control of their bodies and presented in a way that transcends flesh. We’re aware that this all sounds like a very heavy buzzkill, but the textiles are really quite beautiful and a pleasing way to build some brain cells. It also smells nice.
Holes is on now until 26 April and is totally free. Gasworks is open Wed – Sun 12 to 6.
Camera Club
We also recently visited the show ‘Hortus Maximus’ at the little known Camera Club off Kennington Cross. The exhibit is about vegetables and was originally created as a site specific installation for the walls of Cinnamon Kitchen in Bishopsgate by the artist Cinnamon Faye. We’re not exactly sure if she was named after the restaurant but we’re looking into it.
In a world of Tesco meal deals and Frankenfoods, this exhibit is a celebration of edible plants and the remarkable shapes they possess. Shot in large format monochrome using natural light, the foods are printed to resemble etchings of fossils or petrified wood. Faye has focussed on chilis and other foods known for their healing properties, with a few bendy gourds that look nice under a camera. The show also features women from around the world presenting themselves to the planet while holding vegetables.
As obscure as the Camera Club is to most of us, it is one of the longest running photographic societies in the world. We know this to be true as we read it online. Hortus Maximus is open now until 23 Feb and is totally free. The Camera club is open daily from 11:00am to 10:00pm and weekends from 10:00am to 6:00pm. And we have no idea why they’re open over 70 hours a week.
For those of you who have the actual nerve to travel outside greater Kennington, you might in your travels have encountered the Low Line, which is an urban regeneration business initiative created underneath railways arches from Bermondsey to London Bridge. If you’ve seen new arches (and a cinema) opening up in Borough Market and nearby Flat Iron Square then you’ve witnessed this initiative in action. So why are we telling you this little nugget of seemingly useless information?
Union Yard Arches, SE1
This is Battersea, but similar to how our arches will look
For two years a creative team have been at work to extend the Low Line from London Bridge to Battersea. This cuts right through our fair patch from Lambeth North right through Vauxhall and through to the nightmare urban sprawl that is Nine Elms. We are particularly excited about a plan to connect the area by a new cycling/walking route. Some of these arches are already occupied by great local business. However there are other arches, such as the sad lot in front of Newport St. Gallery, who could use some serious TLC.
The vision for the back of Pedlar’a Park
The vision for Goding St. Imagine no nitrous oxide canisters!
The Low Line in our neck of the woods is comprised of 299 (!) arches and a deep dive into the report indicates that that the planners are already aware that a range of independent businesses exist but others have had to move (eg Above the Stag Theatre) when Railtrack hiked the rents up. In the report Lambeth and Wandsworth recognise that what makes our communities work are businesses such as the ones that have existed under these arches for many years. A good example are the Portugese places on Albert Embankment. A hike in rent means they might be no more and we’ll be stuck with the likes of Franco Manco or, god help us, Gail’s Bakery. This should all be kicking off in 2025 hopefully in the right direction. The Runoff are watching you, Lambeth and Wandsworth!
If you want more information and you have a great deal of time on your hands you’re sick in bed, the detailed report can be found here
Last week we attended the gala opening* of the spanking new Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries at the best museum we bet you’ve never been to, our very own Imperial War Museum. This permanent gallery is a valued addition to the Greater Kennington cultural landscape (it’s a thing, trust us) and includes works by Henry Moore, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Cecil Beaton, and Wyndham Lewis to name but a few.
The galleries are laid out by themes and are chronological, from WW1 to 21st century conflicts. As with the other display areas at IWM, these new galleries don’t seek to glorify war but rather to explain it and how it can be avoided. This is achieved by a captivating mix of propaganda posters, photographs (the gallery own 12 million), armaments, film clips, cameras, and first hand accounts. But the great achievement here are the paintings, with the highlight being the recently restored work ‘Gassed’ by Sargent (below). We could have probably spent several days in the gallery’s two screening rooms but the Runoff overlords would have none of it. The reel of clips range from footage of the D-day landings to advice about how to make a wartime compost heap.
Gassed
Rather than being a historical record, the galleries include current work showcasing the conspicuous talent of artists such as Steve McQueen (the Oscar winning artist, not the formerly living action hero). He’s represented here by his artwork ‘Queen and Country’. Also in the mix are descriptions of anti war protests, marches, and attempts to avoid war. This is interesting in its own right, but especially when considering the complex dynamics of what is transpiring in Gaza and Israel at the moment. But a celebration of war artists and photographers is the beating heart of these expansive and well thought out galleries.
You might be reading this and thinking that the IWM is nationalistic and not your cup of chai. We get that, but we are duly challenging you to get your Guardian reading, tofu buying selves over to the IWM when you have a spare hour of two. And as you’ll be in the neighbourhood anyway, why not check out the fascinating exhibit about spies and deception that we wrote about a few weeks ago? Did we mention that they have a stonking café with pretty cakes and sarnies?
Are the proud residents of Walworth aware that you once in your very midst had a Vesuvius like, spewing cauldron of a volcano? It was part of the Surrey Zoological Gardens and we wrote about the gardens and the poor critters who lived there over the summer.
Surrey Zoological Gardens were established in 1831 and situated roughly where Pasley Park currently resides. There are interesting signs in the park detailing the brief but exciting existence of its previous inhabitants and well worth a casual visit. At one side of the vast garden landscape (this was primarily farmland at the time) was a large lake with paddling boats. To get in the punters, the proprietor commissioned a painted illustration of Vesuvius and the city of Naples at the back of the lake, and due to demand later pimped this up with a much bigger landscape, requiring 7000 yards of canvas. This created the illusion that boaters were in a palm fringed Bay of Naples as opposed to a weedy swamp in south London.
The competition to attract pleasure seekers in early 19th century London was tough, and the gardens decided to ape reality in another way by making the painting more immersive. At sunset Vesuvius would come to life by erupting with smoke, fire, underground thunder, and even fireworks. This added titillation was a sensation for people at the time and they flocked in their thousands. If punters got bored there were the added attractions of a music hall, food, and a menagerie of exotic but totally misunderstood animals.
Sadly, the allure of premature death at the hands of fake molten lava and flying rocks grew old, and after 1847 there is no more mention of our enormous painting and the spewing fire behind it. And several years after the Gardens themselves closed owing to the allure of Crystal Palace further down the road and the libidinal pleasures of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which itself was in its final days. Proof as it was ever needed that attracting the attention of Londoners is by no means a current undertaking.
We like to check out the latest exhibits at our very own Gasworks Gallery in Oval as we care about our readers and the gallery is just a little unorthodox (Styrofoam coffins!). The current exhibition is by artist Trevor Yeung and he uses the structure and maintenance of plants to explore how humans relate to one another, and in the show delves into how people use nature in the gay cruising area of Hampstead Heath, which has been popular with cruisers (famously George Michael) since the 19th century.
The gallery rooms are almost totally dark so you might want to let your eyes adjust when you enter the immersive space or you’ll be cruising for a bruising. Once adjusted, you’re in an ethereal wooded space just before sunrise and you’ll need to rely on the sounds and smell of nature to guide you. The smell is of pheromones, earth, and Lynx body spray. You’ll also notice landmarks such the famous ‘piss tree’ in addition to a tinkling fountain, acorns and leaves.
What Yeung has created is a clandestine world loaded with feelings punctuated by brief, fleeting encounters. The brevity is mirrored in a misty early morning shroud that will itself disappear quickly. To some this part of London might be very well known, to others it’s as shrouded as the rooms that Yeung has created.
We told you it was dark
Most of us in the office know London well and have never heard of the aforementioned ‘piss tree’. When your scribe asked Phil from accounts he squirmed in his seat and replied, while not taking his eye off his spreadsheet, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’. We believe you, Phil.
Trevor Yeung: Soft Ground is open now until 18 December and is totally free. Gasworks is open from 12:00 – 5:00 Wednesday to Sunday so you’ve been advised. Associated with Soft Ground, there is a scent workshop this Saturday from 12 – 3 exploring scents and how they make us feel. We don’t have evidence that this is linked to the piss tree.
We recently visited the spanking new exhibit ‘Spies, Lies and Deception’ at our very own world class museum-that-you-probably-don’t-go-to, the Imperial War Museum. The exhibit covers the vast period from WW1 to deepfakes and AI, and like all good things in life is totally free.
In this sprawling exhibit we initially learn that the fundamental goal of spying is to control a narrative to in order get the outcome you want. And what is on offer is the manifold ways in which this achieved, from pens that shoot teargas to ghetto blasters with hidden mics and fake airfields created by Shepperton Studios. The exhibit is broken down into smaller sections handily laid out as ‘Power of Persuasion’ (or the ability to control one’s mind), ‘Hiding Something’ (an Enigma machine features) and ‘Surprising the Enemy’ (eg camouflaged to look like a scary straw man). Now if only we could harness these skills to keep another estate agent from opening up in Kennington.
At its heart this is an exhibit about personal stories. These range from superspy Kim Philby to an unassuming middle aged couple who transformed their modest bungalow in Ruislip into a Russian spy HQ. And these stories continue to our present day, with a description of the Salisbury poisonings a few years ago. There are also stories on the home front about wireless operators and people sent covertly overseas and having to conceal this to their families. But our favourite display is the footprint overshoes used to create the illusion that the soldier was a local walking in the opposite direction.
If over the years you’ve given the IWM a wide berth because you think it promotes or celebrates war, we can assure you that this is not the case. It’s much more about the consequences of conflict, how to avoid it, and human resilience in the face of it. For those reluctant a good starting are the galleries about women during wartime, who kept the country moving as the men folk were fighting.
‘Spies, Lies and Deception is on now until 24 April so you have no excuse to not see it….Or just lie about seeing it to make you look clever and cultured.
We here at Runoff Towers love nothing more that an old fashioned tour, and we’re here to tell you about no fewer than seven free tours taking place this weekend (7 October) in Vauxhall. OK, it’s the same tour done seven times, but it sounds very interesting for history buffs and others who are just generally curious.
The theme of the tour is ‘influencers of Vauxhall’. This puzzled us at first as you don’t really need to go on a tour to see people under the influence in Vauxhall, you just need hang out in front of the station for about five seconds. What it actually is about is the people and industries that established Vauxhall and made it the place we all know and love. So expect some interesting natter about Vauxhall Motors, Doulton Pottery, LGBTQI+ culture, spies, etc.
And please be aware that while these tours are technically free, they do appreciate a tip. So at the end don’t just walk blissfully into the ether (as we know what you lot are like) but pop them a fiver. Tickets can be booked by following the links on this website.
We recently took advantage of a discount to make the bold and frankly quite terrifying decision to step out of Greater Kennington to visit the Van Gogh House on the Oval/Stockwell borders. The house isn’t really a museum per se, and was described by the perky and well drilled staff person as ‘a gallery space for people inspired by Van Gogh and other artists’.
In a reality that might seem a bit surreal to the unaware, before becoming an artist Vincent Van Gogh did indeed live around the corner from the present day Lidl in Stockwell. The house outlines his life at the time through the letters that he prolifically wrote to his brother Theo, a few photos and drawings, and the efforts made to establish Vincent’s residency in the home in the 1970’s. The rooms also offer a fascinating glimpse into a busy 19th century boarding house and school, where 11 people lived.
On the gallery front, the exhibit on now until 17 December is called ‘The Living House’ celebrating the 150 years since the great man’s residency. The exhibits explore the notion that the home is still inhabited in some manner and plays on the notion that the house is a collaborator in the artistic process and toys with the concept that art and living are entwined. And you even get a bar of soap for your cerebral efforts.
Until 30 September Lambeth residents can visit Van Gogh museum for £4 and tickets can be nabbed here. If you live in Southwark then sorry, no discount for you. If you live in Wandsworth we’re not sure why you’re reading this site but should nevertheless be applauded for your profoundly good taste.
