Holloway Arts Festival

Holloway Arts Festival ran for the eighth time this year. It is produced by Rowan Arts

For details of all the events that were held in 2010, please see Full Programme

Winner of the Battle of the Bands: Scarlet in the Wilderness

Winner of the Female Singer Songwriter Competition: Ellie Rosell

Owing to the standard and general level of relevance of the Haiku entries, we have been unable to choose a winner of the Holloway Haiku Competition

Despite a cut in funding this year, the 8th Holloway Arts Festival still managed to provide a fantastic range of high quality art events in Islington. As always, there was something for everyone and a really special blend of local and high profile talent. We had three children’s authors events – a local mum called Candy Gourlay who’s just published her first book, Tall Story, at North Library, Nicky Singer at Lauderdale House and Anthony Horowitz at the British Library. We had Turner prize-winner Grayson Perry beautifully dressed at the Assembly Rooms, and lots of local artists exhibiting their work in all sorts of new venues throughout Islington. A beautiful book has been produced from the ‘Making Inroads’ oral history project and it’s been wonderful to find out more about some of the people I come across in everyday life in Holloway – my dental nurse Veronica, my school’s head teacher Mary Gibson and Hasan Tuncbilek who runs the dry cleaners. It’s succeeded, yet again, in making me feel connected to Holloway and appreciate the power of the arts to stimulate and enliven. It’s been a celebration of the talent in our neighbourhood and brought world-class practitioners to our doorstep. What a gift!

Loan Tran, Rowan Arts trustee

Audience comments

On a scale of 1 to 10 it's a MASSIVE 10!

Phoebe Smith, Big Day Out

Interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining.

Carol Feldon, Connecting Conversations with Grayson Perry and Valerie Sinason

The talk was deep yet not boring and revealed much.

Loon Samak, Connecting Conversations with Anthony Horowitz and Peter Fonagy

A well hung, beautifully photographed and explained exhibition. I look forward to reading the book.

Ginette Wivcoly, Making Inroads

I loved it. It's so important to have a project that explores the idea of roots: where we come from and where we plant roots later in life.

Daniela Essart, Making Inroads participant

On a humid afternoon on Holloway Road, the levelling calm and wry humour of Wendy Cope was brought to Archway Methodist Hall. Cope’s reading provided a welcome mixture of old favourites and new treasures, including several previews from her collection due to be published next year.

Cope‘s familiar wit and pragmatism were pleasantly accompanied by unexpected touches of surrealism and a gift for explanation. Rather than obfuscating the process of her craft, Cope made her material completely approachable by providing potted explanations of both theme and form. Responsive to social, emotional and technological change, her poetry shows a great versatility in not only its formal qualities, but in its tone and subject matter too.

In a question and answer session, Cope also discussed her writing process and the intricacies of the relationship between visual and oral poetry. Emphasising her policy of perseverance, Cope’s modest attitude towards her success was refreshing and inspiring.

Helena Rampley