SARF SIDEZ!!!!!!!

Yep its time!!!!!
east london is busting at the seams with f'in moustaches and fix friggin gears! Yeah we are all creative but sometimes you just wanna breath some real air, not the trendy stuff! Chat about what bargain you got in Iceland and how much you paid for ya dog, that kinda stuff, normal stuff. Not about how many exhibitions you have had, what amaizng new collaboration is going down at DSM or how many private view invites you got last week. Yeah its all great and i must admit i am a mega ponce when i wanna be, but sometimes i just like to take a step back.
Hence why i work Eastsidez and live Sarfsidez!!!

Check this out, and don't say i didn't tell ya!

Peckham raises the roof

Move over Hackney! London's next creative hotspot, signalled by this bold rooftop sculpture park, could be south of the river, reports Hermione Hoby



It's a hot Tuesday night, and 1,000 twentysomethings have elected to spend it in a multi-storey municipal car park in Peckham. It's a crowd impressive enough to match the big, bold artworks they're here to see. A sculpture park on the roof of the 10-storey building in Rye Lane forms the highlight of the third Bold Tendencies exhibition from the Hannah Barry Gallery, which has joined forces with four local artists' groups for a formidable show.

Coming so soon after the success of Barry's Peckham Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, if anything can substantiate claims of an influential youthful art "scene" in Peckham, this is it. Among the works is James Balmforth's Failed Obelisk, with its detached apex flailing on a spring, and a ziggurat-like piece from Molly Smyth called Motion Towards Collapse: both names suggest defectiveness but the pieces couldn't look more assured of their own clout and strength. The rooftop also boasts a cafe and bar designed by recent architecture graduates Lettice Drake and Paloma Gormley - daughter of Antony Gormley, whose cast-iron bollards (part of Southwark council's Peckham regeneration programme) grace the nearby Bellenden Road.

While Gormley senior is a famous former resident, the south London suburb is more likely to be associated, at best, with fictitious wheeler-dealers Rodney and Del Boy, and worst, Harriet Harman in a stab-proof vest. Soon, though, it may become synonymous with art. Cheap rent and large empty buildings are a classic recipe for attracting young artists, and Peckham's creative boom has also been helped by a stream of graduates from nearby Camberwell and Goldsmiths art colleges.

Felix Petty, who heads a collective called Off Modern, explains that his and other artist-led groups, including Lucky PDF and Sunday Painter, all started work within weeks of each other last year. "We all focused on putting on young artists who wouldn't get a chance to exhibit normally. Instead of being top-down, big exhibitions, it's a real grass-roots thing, and that's why it's blossomed so much. It's also much easier to do stuff to a higher quality if everyone's helping each other out and pooling their resources." Hannah Barry agrees. "There's a particular spirit among these artists of working together yet working separately."

There's certainly a sense of everyone knowing everyone else, and Peckham pride is out in force at the Bold Tendencies opening. Petty admits that the scene can be a little parochial: "It becomes as much about the area as anything else because it's such a factor in the way everything's run here."

Margot Heller, whose South London Gallery is a neighbour of Camberwell College of Art, cites her gallery's forthcoming expansion as well as a new multi-platform arts space, Area 10, as evidence of Peckham's burgeoning creative activity. "It's this coming together of different people and different activities that gives a sense of energy and possibility," Heller says. "Hannah Barry has shown enormous energy and initiative in setting up her gallery, and that really has contributed to a sense of there being a 'scene'."

Barry herself says: "If you don't have any money, you have to find a way to do what it is you're trying to do. I feel strongly that lack of money should not stand in the way. Of anything."

"Of course," she adds, laughing, "we haven't been able to have the plunge pool I wanted, but you have to make some compromises!"

With a sunset gilding an already spectacular view of the capital, the impression from the 10th floor is that Peckham has the whole of London at its feet. As a metaphor, it doesn't seem that far-fetched.