Songlines for Greenwich Black History 365 project February to July 2025 Songlines for Greenwich – Black History 365 project 2025 This mini walking festival linked up different parts of the Borough, exploring Black Lives – those unique reclaimed stories and hidden histories – located in Greenwich’s diverse landscape. On these walking tours you will experience and celebrate unexplored Black History hidden in Greenwich’s historic building, its ghost traces, found buried in our National Monuments and Archives. The Greenwich BH365 Project celebrations offered a wonderful opportunity to invite young Black artists and Global Majority artists to respond to the history hidden within the Borough and within its unique archives. It also allowed us time to work with existing and new partners. Clockhouse Community centre again was incredibly supportive and welcoming – providing free space for us to develop the walks during the months February to May. We were also privileged to work closely again with Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Centre (The Conservation Volunteers and with Greenwich University) and with new partners at Queens House (National Maritime Museums); with Severndroog Castle and Friends; with St George’s Church Eltham. The funding allowed us to co-create a series of walks from April – July 2025 that included: an interactive walk around Historic Greenwich, Greenwich Park and to Queens House (National Maritime Museums) with Walking Artist Remiiya Badru leading the walk and participant discussions; Walking through the centre of Woolwich town, Present, Memory and Myths was a multi-sensory exploration of Black British female writers, with readings along the River and around Old Woolwich Dockyards. with final participatory reading by Local Lead Artist Bonita Charles; At Severndroog, Theatre Artist Frances Calliste took the audience on a sensory participatory and musical tour retelling the backstory of the Castle, its intimate relation to East India Company and India, and the links to slave histories and colonial exploitation. This beautifully researched walk – Trade, Piracy and Colonialism – ended in a display exploring Pirate Radio in South London (based on the recent history of the Castle, used as Pirate Radio Station in the 1980’s). The project opened up many opportunities for conversation and exchange. For future walks and participants: we hope to build on the interactive nature of the walks as sights of conversation, discussion and cross-cultural exchange. So that participants can be more involved in the making and shaping of walk/event experience. Together we were invited to experience, share in and celebrate unexplored Black History – walks led by local artists – that seek to uncover, then retell hidden, buried or untold stories from the Black British diaspora, through a festival of unique public walk events and performances. For 3 months InspiralLondon researches, curates and creates a first BlackHistory walk festival – offering free open workshops – that offer a season of public walks and interventions across the Royal Borough of Greenwich in Greenwich Peninsula, Woolwich, Greenwich Historic Centre, Mottingham and Eltham. Walks include: Spiral Sanctuary Magic Lantern Walk 16 May; Distant Sounds of Migration 24 May; Songlines of Greenwich 1 June; 4 Retellings Walks on 12 July – 10.30am Ghosting Eltham, 1.30pm Songlines Footfall, 3.30pm Trade, Piracy and Colonialism, 6.30pm Present, Memory and Myths; and ‘Where we have been/We were here…’ 10am on the 19 July. Free tickets and events programme open for Eventbrite Bookings via our Events Calender 2025 Or follow us instagram, subscribe to our newsletter for latest news/events/walks/projects. Other news: InspiralLondon are delighted to be working with walking artist and creative learning practitioner Remiiya Badru, and young Global Majority artists’ Frances Calliste & Bonita Charles on InspiralLondon’s Songlines for Greenwich. A Black History 365 celebration project funded by The Royal Borough of Greenwich, that seeks to uncover, then retell hidden, buried or untold stories from the Black British diaspora, through a festival of unique public walk events and performances. You can find Remiiya ‘Smile in the River – Walking Tours/ artelieremiiya/ createngage – @remiiyariverambler. To hear tell the extraordinary buried histories of Black sailors, Black adventurers, Black women, migration and exchange – stories of the Black British diaspora and of Greenwich’s rich complex history as the Thameside Maritime Borough.
