Download the Festival Comms Pack – including posters, leaflets, banners, and ready-to-use social media graphics and captions – to help you promote your event and spread the word about the Tower Hamlets Power of Food Festival!
Power of Food Festival is a 10-day festival across Tower Hamlets – celebrating the borough’s community and food cultures, and showcasing local projects building fairer, more sustainable food systems.
There will be inspiring, thought-provoking and delicious events including community meals, supper clubs, workshops, film screenings, photography exhibitions, kids’ activities, panel discussions, and tours of gardens and food-growing spaces, including a farm based in Essex that grows food for the borough. Sign up to the food newsletter to stay in the loop and be the first to access tickets.
Food and Power
This festival invites us to think about the unique power of food. It is at the heart of our lives, connecting us to our traditions, cultures, and people around us. It links to how we care for ourselves and others. It also invites us to think about how we can take power into our own hands and reclaim our food system – so it has the interests of our communities and the environment at its heart. From learning food skills, to practicing our culture and feeling connected to our communities, to building alternative ways of growing, buying, sharing and composting food – these are all ways that can put power back into our hands.
Be part of the festival!
It’s not too late to be part of the festival. If you’re planning something at this time, that aligns with the theme of the festival, please get in touch with us and we can consider adding your event to the programme – justfact@wen.org.uk.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL PROGRAMME (more events coming soon)
festival Events
Mobile Arts Installation, on a converted food trailer
Friday 19th – Sunday 28th 10:00-16:00
Stepney City Farm, E1 3DG
We have converted an old coffee trailer into a vessel that holds our dreams for food and land justice in Tower Hamlets! The trailer asks you to think about the past, present and future of food justice: to recall your food memories, to ponder what access to food and land looks like today, and to dream about better systems of the future. Our trailer is currently parked at Stepney City Farm, and we hope you come along and add your mark to its growing tapestry. We are closed on Mondays. |
With Platform
Perpetual Stew
Friday 19th to Sunday 28th, 1100-1600 and 1830-2100
House of Annetta, E1 6QH
Perpetual stew is a week of events exploring knowledge justice and spatial justice. Events include discussions, screenings, workshops and walks on land ownership, food, housing, climate, and health in our local community and beyond.
Bring a vegetable for the everlasting pot of stew, simmered day and night.
DAYTIME: Visit the exhibition, free lunch,
teas and juices made from foraged, fermented, found and donated ingredients.
EVENING: Share your ingredient, a volunteer team of cooks chop it up and add it to the pot. Then, skill-shares, discussions, plotting, dreaming, followed by a collective feast.
With House of Annetta
Boil & Bubble Family Cook-a-longs
Friday 19th, 1600 – 1700 (Key stage 1 children)
Monday 22nd, 1600-1700 (Key stage 2 children)
Tuesday 23rd, 1600-1700 (Early years)
Teviot Centre, E14 6QD
Sensory cook-a-long workshops for children and families! Boil & Bubble will host three after-school cook along events for children and families to come and make some delicious dishes prepared using surplus produce and things from our community kitchen garden at Bowden Primary.
With Boil & Bubble
FULL ENGLISH
Opening night: Friday 19th, 17:00
Exhibition: September 15th to October 5th, Mon-Sun 0900-1500
Poplar Union, E14 6TL
The Full English explores the food cultures of the Muslim community and how both traditional English and international cuisines have become incorporated into their daily lives.
With Poplar Union
Fermenting Futures
Saturday 20th, 14:00-16:00
House of Annetta, E1 6QH
A participatory workshop using kimchi making and storytelling to interrogate East and South East Asian food sovereignty and climate organising, using slow fermentation as a metaphor and tool to interrogate cultures of resistance to social injustice.
Afterwards, attendees will collectively discuss and reflect on how selected poems, writings, and revolutionary readings and stories relate to everyday, existing local food practices and sustainability projects.
With Green Lions
Folx Farm F.A.F Open Day
Saturday 20th, 11:00-16:00
Folx Farm, TN36 4AH
The open day will include a guided tour of the farm and introduction to the Food Access Fund (FAF) project and growing space. It will be fun and relaxed, including a group lunch and an opportunity to get inspired, share concepts around food justice and rest and reflect with others in nature. Travel to the site included.
With Folx Farm
Chai-chana time
Saturday 20th, 14:00-16:00
Arts One, Queen Mary, E1 4PD
Come and join us for Chanachur making, Masala chai tasting and Carrom board playing. Find about the British Bengali a popular street food snack, hot drink and game. Get to know you neighbours in Tower Hamlets, the Swadhinta Trust is based at Queen Mary University of London, and we welcome you! With Swadhinata Trust
Boodle Karaoke!
Sunday 21st, 17:00-21:00
Pelican House, E1 5QJ
A celebration of Filipino food and culture, a play on two very important parts of every Filipino fiesta: eating and singing. Inspired by the Filipino Kamayan tradition where people eat with their hands, food plated on banana leaves. The addition of a Karaoke with everyone singing their hearts out belting their favourite tunes creates a fun, festive atmosphere that’s uniquely Filipino. With United Domestic Workers Association
Family-friendly event
Our World, Our Wellness
Tuesday 23th, 13:00-15:15
Teviot Centre, E14 6QD
A celebration / showcase of local food co-operation, gardening for wellbeing, and sustainable food practices. With contributions from community leaders, food justice practitioners, gardeners, and youth. With Leaders in Community
Spitalfields City Farm
Wednesday 24th, 10:00-16:00
Spitalfields City Farm, E1 5AR
A day of events to highlight the role food and cooking plays in Bangladeshi and Asian culture. There will be a harvesting, cooking and eating session, a Q+A session with the growers, a Farm 2 Fork session led by our education team, and tours of the Farm’s growing spaces.
Practicing community-led food justice
Thursday 25th, 14:00-15:30
Stepney City Farm, E1 3DG
What could Tower Hamlets look like in 50 years if we had a community-led food system? This is the question we, the Blueprint Architects, have been asking ourselves for the past five years. This journey has led us to a political understanding of food justice as inextricable from questions of capitalism and land ownership. And so, we want a piece of land for our local communities. Come along to this workshop with the Blueprint Architects and our converted ‘food justice trailer’, and join our land campaign. Let’s plan for radical futures in Tower Hamlets together. |
With Platform
Community Harvest Festival Celebration
Thursday 25th, 12:30-16:00
Stepney City Farm, E1 3DG
The celebration will include a community meal, a herbal workshop, a tour around the farm and food growing areas, and stalls from women involved in Ocean Women’s Association. The lunch requires a booking, otherwise just drop by!
With Stepney City Farm & Ocean Women’s Association
Swedenborg Orchard
Thursday 25th, 12:00-17:00
Swedenborg Gardens Orchard, E1 8HR
An open community event with harvested crops from summer, a pickling workshop,
refreshments, and plant swaps.
With Swedenborg Orchard
Plastic Free Poplar Picnic
Friday 26th, 16:00-19:00
R Urban Poplar, E14 0SP
Join us for a collaborative cooking session
creating plant based picnic foods without the plastic! Learn how to make yummy dips and a simple bread from scratch, and enjoy a communal meal with our creations. Love to share food? Bring your own dishes from home to share with others at the picnic, and swap your ideas and plastic-free recipes. People are welcome to come just for the picnic.
Family-friendly event
With Sunny Jar Eco Hub
Storytelling with SASS: Food, Culture and Heritage
Friday 26th, 18:30-21:00
The Gallery Cafe, St Margaret’s House, E2 9PL
Join us for an evening exploring food and South Asian culture, hear reflections from women in the food industry and share your own stories on your relationship with food.
Stories from the garden - Stop Motion at R-Urban
Workshop: Friday 26th, 14:00-17:00
Screening: Saturday 27th, 11:00-15:00
R-Urban, E14 0SP
Join us for a fun, family-friendly stop-motion workshop celebrating R-Urban’s growing community using recycled and natural materials. Shape your own story and see it on the big screen at the TPK Fair!
With Public Works
Right to Grow x Cranbrook: Roots & Routes
Saturday 27th, 10:00-16:00
Cranbrook Community Food Garden, E2 0RB
A community-led garden tour across Tower Hamlets, celebrating local harvests, global food cultures, and shared stories—culminating in a harvest celebration and the launch of The Cranbrook Community Cookbook.
With Cranbrook Community Food Garden & Right to Grow Tower Hamlets
StoryPlay
Sunday 28th, 10:30-12:30
Rich Mix, E1 6LA
Playful creative sessions that encourage and provide opportunities for families with young children to create and socialise with a special focus on greening, gardening and growing food. This StoryPlay will be looking at the summer harvest and transition to Autumn. Come and get involved with our Community Garden as we tell stories, play games and nurture the plants we’ve been growing over the summer!
With Rich Mix