A pop-up palace of culture to open in Enfield Town

A pop-up arts and community hub will launch in Enfield Town this autumn while the Dugdale Centre is used as an NHS COVID-19 vaccination centre.

The Culture Palace inside Palace Gardens shopping centre will be a temporary, cultural playhouse that will host exhibitions, theatre, children’s books, art activities, workshops, a mindfulness café and much more.

Enfield Council will bring together the expertise of the Dugdale Centre, the Museum of Enfield and EnFood into the Culture Palace. In addition, Pickled Pepper Books, a North London independent creative business comprising a children’s bookshop and theatre and events company will also use the space. The Culture Palace is scheduled to open in September 2021.

Enfield Council’s Deputy Leader, Cllr Ian Barnes, said: “Enfield Council’s Cultural Strategy identifies opportunities to harness all the potential the borough has to offer, to build on existing provisions and to work collaboratively to generate new initiatives. Theatres, museums, libraries and art centres support our local economy, bring character to our town centres and connect and educate communities. This is a fantastic collaboration with Palace Gardens, to whom we’d like to extend our thanks for hosting this as the first of a series of culture and community pop-ups.

“We have been proud to support the NHS COVID-19 vaccination efforts and are thrilled the Dugdale has welcomed more than 35,000 people to be vaccinated over the last few months. But we are also looking forward to the Dugdale Centre reopening as the borough’s beloved cultural hub in Spring 2022.”

Palace Gardens will also host a pop-up from Edmonton-based Artist Hive Studios. This pop-up – called Field – will bring in a range of artists to work on site, with a shopfront gallery space and a range of workshops and activities. Field and the Culture Palace will work together on special events and activities to get people from across Enfield involved in amazing arts experiences. This builds on the recent exhibition of artists’ work via a public art trail of poster sites across the borough curated by Artist Hive Studios and @fromstudiolockdown, with support from Enfield Council.

Paul Duke, Palace Gardens centre manager, said: “We are very excited to be hosting the Culture Palace at Palace Gardens this Autumn. Our shoppers are sure to find lots of great things to see and do.

“We expect visitors will enjoy their time at the arts and community hub in Palace Gardens so much that they will keep coming back to see what else there is and what’s new.”

The Culture Palace builds upon the Council’s efforts to showcase arts, heritage and culture to the community. In June, performers and entertainers were brought to Library Green to entertain people for free, outdoors, during the half-term school holiday. This August, A Month of Sundays, is a series of food festivals in different locations across the borough with entertainment along the way. The Museum of Enfield is currently touring an exhibition From Enfield to Fork, which explores the borough’s food heritage.

To find out more about the Culture Palace and other events, visit www.dugdalecentre.co.uk or sign up to the Council’s Things To Do e-newsletter at www.enfield.gov.uk/enewsletters . –

Additional quote:

Urmi Merchant, owner of Pickled Pepper, said: “Pickled Pepper Books is delighted to be bringing our children’s bookshop and family friendly events to Enfield in this exciting new collaboration with The Dugdale at Culture Palace”.

– Culture Palace and the Palace Pop-Ups programme are managed by Dallas-Pierce-Quintero for Palace Gardens.

– Pickled Pepper Books is a specialist children’s bookshop, cafe and events space based in Crouch End, North London. Find out more at https://www.pickledpepperbooks.co.uk/

– Artist Hive Studios is an Edmonton based studio hub that fosters the development of an artist’s career, providing affordable studio spaces in a creative environment. AHS is a space run by artists for artists. https://www.artisthivestudios.com/

– Images attached are of Dugdale on the Green, a week-long series of free performances 31 May to 6 June 2021