The Peckham Pelican arts cafe is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a free retrospective throughout August.
The Peckham Pelican opened its doors on the 3rd of August 2013. By their own account the three friends who launched it “didn’t have the faintest idea what they were doing”.
Slowly The Pelican worked out how to keep people fed, watered and loosely in touch with what was going on in South East London.
“Having Camberwell College as our neighbours has been fantastic – as an arts venue we get access to incredible emerging artists right on our doorstep, and in return, we’re able to give them a platform to display their work. It’s really helped us to feel part of the local creative community and together we’ve helped to increase the profile of arts in the area.”
Having hosted in excess of one hundred exhibitions, The Pelican is now curating its own show to celebrate 10 Years of Pelican. The exhibition is split into two parts – the first a retrospective and the second a collection of brand new works.
For the retrospective, the Pelican curatorial team have selected highlights from their vast archive of photography, event posters and other oddities from the past ten years. For the second part, The Pelican creative community were asked to respond to the brief ‘What does The Pelican mean to you?’ to create a new collection of engaging, endearing and definitely funny original works.
The works tell a tale of bagels buttered, exhibitions hung, pints poured, books launched, broken mugs and friendships made. Plus, Red Stripes. Lots of hanging out with cans of Red Stripe.
Altogether the exhibition documents how a special Pelican community has evolved; a makeshift family bound by chaos, premium lager and friendship.
The Peckham Pelican, 92 Peckham Road, London SE15 5PY from Friday 4th August to Saturday 2nd September.
Tue – Sat 11am – 11pm, Sunday 12pm – 6pm, closed Mondays.
The Pelican will be offering 10% off all draught pints for the entire month of the exhibition.
