Walthamstow Garden Party 2017 photos
Words and photos by Aaron Lee
The Walthamstow Garden Party took place last weekend. For the fourth consecutive year, musicians, poets, dancers, circus performers, and community groups put on a splendid show for the thousands of revellers who’d turned out to enjoy the festivities in Lloyd Park.
Performers this year included Toots and the Maytals, Tinariwen, members of The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang, The Heliocentrics, BNegão & Seletores de Frequência, Doug Hream Blunt and the Messengers, and The Ska Vengers.
There were also performances by award-winning poet Kaya Chingonyi, members of the Barbican Young Poets, local poetry groups, dance group Blue Boy Entertainment, circus team Alula Cyr, and others.
Here are some of our favourite moments we captured.
BNegão & Seletores de Frequência bringing their Brazilian heat to London.
Sierra Leone’s Janka Nabay and his international band, The Bubu Gang.
Toots and the Maytals headlined Saturday sharing their rootsy reggae with phenomenal energy.
Cyr wheel performer Lil Rice: she sings, she twirls.
Poet Malakai Sargeant go plenty of laughs from the audience with his wry humour and tales of gentrification.
Poets Jeremiah Brown and Victoria Adukwei Bulley.
Poet Cameron Holleran boldly took his passages directly to the people.
Tyrone Lewis pondered what would happen if Luke Skywalker was black, things that remind him he is black, and why his mum has “a TARDIS heart”.
Eslam Jawaad and members of The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians.
Barbora Patkova with jazz-psych ensemble The Heliocentrics.
Young comedians Holly Norrington and Teddy Lamb.
Tinariwen, award-winning Malian musicians and grassroots activists, closed the festival on Sunday evening.
A record 19,000 people visited the festival, and nearly 35,000 across the weekend. There were over 1,300 participants, including 450 young people.
Find out more about the Walthamstow Garden Party here.
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