SHAPESLewisham is a creative network which was conceived as part of the Creative Enterprise Zone initiative and aims to promote, celebrate and connect the creative community in Lewisham
Lewisham is home to a vast array of diverse, vibrant and ambitious creatives, existing in many different forms across many disciplines. Each project, practitioner and business is unique with its own distinctive personality, offering something special to our local community. From digital and technology to craft and making, creatives are engaging with important ideas through a variety of different spaces, resources and practices.
SHAPESLewisham was conceived with this diversity at its heart and aims to provide a platform upon which a creative community can thrive. Our vision is for creatives to engage with each other, feel supported and be connected.
SHAPESLewisham is home to a calendar of events, exhibitions and shows, and a board of upcoming jobs and funding opportunities. It also features a directory of sites, workspaces, and a shop that allows customers to discover locally made goods and a forum that opens the network to share industry-based questions and ideas.
SHAPESLewisham is a growing network and we are continually making new connections with the local creative community. We’re always happy to hear from a local project, practitioner and business, so get in touch, share your work and register your profile with us.
Lewisham has been chosen as one of the capital’s first-ever Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ) by the Mayor of London as part of a ground-breaking initiative to support artists and creative businesses
In 2019, the Borough of Lewisham became one of six ‘Creative Enterprise Zones’ (CEZs) across London as part of the Mayor of London initiative to support artists, practitioners, and creative businesses. In the chosen Zones, the initiative has seen greater protection and support of creative industries by identifying workspaces and opportunities for local people. Our Creative Enterprise Zone aims to better connect and amplify our creative community and support creative businesses to develop stronger roots and more sustainable practices.
We seek to enable talent from across the Borough to access pathways to participation and employment in the creative industries; opening up expertise and facilities of our educational and cultural institutions toward much more purposeful creative knowledge exchange; testing new types of collaborative practice to ignite the innovation potential of the creative industries.
If we can better connect the different elements of our creative ecosystem, we have the opportunity to establish our Creative Enterprise Zone as the most compelling education, creative and social milieu in London.
