People and Heritage: a programme for 2020

In 2019 – Finsbury Park’s 150th anniversary year – we celebrated with a programme of events including #Everything150, a contemporary archaeology project in partnership with the Museum of London; a People’s Park photographic exhibition as part of the Mayor of London’s National Park City Festival; and a series of outdoor People’’s Platform performances by local musicians.

Now we start 2020 with a new People and Heritage programme, connecting the present and future community of the park to its 150-year heritage as The People's Park. We've produced a small zine with information about the programme, including:

• An expanded People’s Park photographic exhibition, featuring many more stories and images from the park’s heritage, contributed by members of the community, libraries and local history centres in all three boroughs.
• A series of Heritage Talks in the Finsbury Park Café in the middle of the park (the first is on 29 Jan, book here!)
• A programme of Safe Space workshops where vulnerable adults and carers can meet and engage with talks, dementia walks and artistic activities.
• Plans to make three-dimensional laser scans of the entire park, both as a record of the park today and to create opportunities for imagining and visualising different futures and types of engagement.
• An adventure learning programme with local schools, which is already under way.

The zine also has other articles of interest, including one by former Friends of Finsbury Park chair Simon Hunt, who argues cogently for the protection and conservation of our most precious resource as a green, vibrant, open space for everyone for the next 150 years, and another by Malcolm Garrett about the influential Black-Art Gallery that used to be in the building now occupied by the Finsbury Park Trust. Museum of London assistant curator Matt Williams writes about Objects That Tell A Story, accompanying a series of photos from the community walks that took place throughout last year.

Copies of the free zine are available at the Trust and the Café. If you can't get hold of one or would like to help distribute through your own space in or near the park, please get in touch via email or DM @finsburypark150