One Year On: A look back at the Winstanley Past, Present and Future Festival
Last summer, the Winstanley and York Road Estates came alive with the Past, Present and Future Festival, a month long cultural programme bringing residents, artists and local organisations together to celebrate the estates heritage, its current community and to think about what lies ahead.
Running from 13th June to 13th July 2025 as part of Wandsworth’s year as London Borough of Culture, the festival was all about reconnecting people with place and with each other. Through a mix of creative events, workshops, film and shared moments, it created space for residents and visitors to take pride in and imagine the future of their neighbourhood together.
Throughout the month, more than 1,000 people took part in 11 events and initiatives, with activity unfolding across the estate from York Gardens and Pennethorne Square to Providence House and St Peter’s Church. The programme was shaped by a wide network of partners, including local artists, community groups, schools and cultural organisations, all contributing to a genuinely collaborative and fun festival.
Some of the most memorable moments came from community led events. Falconbrook School’s International Celebration in Pennethorne Square brought families together to share food, music from their choir and steel pan performers, traditional games and more from cultures across the world, reflecting the richness and diversity of the local community.
The festival opened with a screening of ‘Battersea Junction: Winstanley Stories’, an intergenerational oral history project created by digital:works with young people from Falconbrook School in 2017/2018. It set the tone for a strong heritage focus that ran throughout the programme. Projects like the Mapping Winstanley exhibition explored collective histories through creative walking maps, while Echoes of Us invited visitors to experience the estates through audio stories placed in the landscape (some may still be there if you take a look!).
Other activities encouraged people to take part more hand on, from creative workshops like My Moving Medal, where people celebrated personal milestones through making unique medals, to playful moments like the Bureau of Silly Ideas interactive splash street installation. The walking tour and film-making workshop led by POoR Collective gave visitors the tools to document and tell their own stories of the area.
Young people were at the heart of the programme, particularly through Providence House’s youth showcase, where local talent took to the stage, as well as Agoe Empowerment’s Community Day, which brought together West African drumming, storytelling, crafts, food and practical support services for the whole family.
A key strand of the festival was the partnership with the Royal College of Art, where MFA Art in the Urban students worked closely with residents to explore the identity of the Winstanley and York Road Estates through creative projects. Three student proposals: Pops of Joy, A Coat of Strengths and Heritage and Home were selected and funded to be realised, with some also going on to feature in the London Festival of Architecture.
One of the standout pieces was A Coat of Strengths, a 3D steel sculpture developed with 16 local residents that reimagines Winstanley’s own coat of arms. The work highlights the often unseen strengths of the community. Meanwhile, the large scale interactive outdoor work Pops of Joy transformed Pennethorne Square into a colourful, welcoming space, inviting people to play, create and spend time together in new ways.
The festival ended with a lively Zumba pop up led by Baked Bean charity and Winstanley resident Lottie, bringing big energy into the heart of the estates in York Gardens.
While the festival may have been temporary, its impact wasn’t. It strengthened relationships between partners, created new opportunities for local people to take part in culture on their doorstep and showed how creativity can bring people together during a time of change.