Harlesden High Street’s founder and director recounts a weekend filled with music, barbecues, early morning rum punch, and friends.
It was nine in the morning on Sunday, the 24th of August. A client of mine who obtained an artwork from one of our previous annual carnival exhibitions wrote to me, out of the blue, to come over and meet some of his friends before hitting the hot pavements of Notting Hill. He’s been living in Ladbroke Grove all his life and wanted to celebrate his new home whilst managing to remain in the neighbourhood. I was a little intimidated at first, as I always am to leave my house and meet new people (I’m not as extroverted as most people think), but I mustered up the courage and got there. Another friend had already arrived and was having a coffee and a cinnamon bun. “Is 10:30 a.m. too early to have a drink?” my client asked. “It’s your house, my guy, but I’m not saying no,” I replied. Admittedly, we got into it early as more friends arrived before we hit Carnival at 12:30 p.m. on the dot.
As we broke through outside, it was surprising to see Notting Hill was active and the crowds were swarming. We first hit Rampage Sound, where they were playing some classic garage, before we separated.
I went to Powis Square for Alvaro Barrington and Celeste Doig’s Emelda’s Junction, where I bumped into Antonia Marsh from Soft Opening. She could tell I was about to dip, and told me that “Dawn Penn is about to come on, so you probably want to stick around.” Within moments, the MC, Dawn’s nephew, made a mega introduction, and Dawn started remixing classics — Sunshine by Roy Ayers and a remix of No, No, No.
The next day, we were preparing for Toby Cato’s debut solo exhibition, This Time Around, at Harlesden High Street — a prelude to his solo presentation with us at the upcoming Frieze London. The afternoon started to seem like a bit of a bust: Toby has a band called Clayfoot that was due to perform some live jazz outside the gallery on the streets of Harlesden, but one of the members fell ill.
We were also supposed to have a barbecue by Modu Sesay, but he vanished on us last minute (no shade), so we decided to get some takeaway from our local Caribbean spot, One Stop, and load up on drinks. We waited around for both Toby and the barbecue man as people arrived, waiting for Toby to take their polaroids.
A group of unrelated musicians turned up and decided to do an impromptu jazz set, which drew a crowd as gallery attendees slowly turned up. Then, just in time, so did Toby. Now everything was in full swing, and Toby was snapping Polaroids of people, which he turns into paintings, bringing strangers together in an airbrushed collage style.
Harlesden was now active, the streets full of the local Carnival youth floating around the neighbourhood as sirens and helicopters filled the background, giving an air of both excitement and chaos. Modu finally arrived, ready with his barbecue, as people were enjoying the music-playing and Polaroid-taking. Some evenings may start slow at Harlesden High Street, but we always end up on the right track.
Words and photography by Jonny Tanna
