Barnet's month of light

Sophie Winch on the opening of the Light and Flight arts festival

Ascendance preview by Matthew Rosier — Ascendance by Matthew Rosier

This month, Barnet’s Light and Flight cultural programme has organised a borough-wide festival celebrating local culture, held in three locations across Barnet.

There have been calls to hold a festival like this for some time, but the Cultural Impact Award has finally made it possible. In 2024, this award, run by the Mayor of London, gave Barnet £200,000 to facilitate the creation of an arts and culture festival.

BBC Radio London broadcaster Robert Elms presented the start of the festival yesterday, emphasising his pride in the borough. “I’m a Barnet boy myself,” he told us.

He reflected on how much Barnet had changed since his childhood, becoming a hub of creativity, diversity and connection.

Light and Flight, as a name, is significant in a few ways; the festival highlights existing culture in Barnet, acts as a beacon to connect communities, and celebrates stories of migration and journeys into and through the borough.

14th and 15th November – Finchley Lakeside

At Finchley Lakeside, a weekend of events include the exhibiting of a community scrapbook on growing up in Barnet from the Museum of Youth Culture, a ceramics workshop run by Maxability and Keith Brymer Jones, a performance by young musicians of Barnet-born George Michael’s Praying for Time by the Barnet Educational Arts Trust with a new arrangement by David Arnold, and artist Matthew Rosier’s project Ascendance, which features the voices of older Barnet residents and floating projections of younger ones.

21st November – RAF Museum

Across the borough, the RAF Museum in Colindale will host Light and Flight’s ‘To Barnet With Love’, featuring live music and storytelling, alongside an exhibition of community-made postcards, archive images and augmented reality, from the 30th of October 2026 to the 22nd of February, 2027.

21st and 22nd November – Artsdepot

Artsdepot in North Finchley is hosting two raves. Barnet Post spoke to Monique Deletant, CEO of Artsdepot, about their involvement. “Heart beats regulate with each other [in an auditorium],” she said. “This is a time where people can come together and have a shared experience. It gets us out of the day-to-day, and reminds us of who our neighbours are.”

Artsdepot will be staging Jez Colborne’s immersive performance ‘Lighthouse’. Monique says. “It’s about a lighthouse keeper who is isolated from the world […] Robots come, and then there’s a rave”.

The music takes its influence from the 90s, and the sirens of traditional rave culture. Alongside this, there’s a family rave planned too, organised by Mind the Gap.

Light and Flight, Monique tells us, aims to foster connection: “whether it’s something you’re doing with your children, or your friends, or people you’ve just met”.

“We should see this as the beginning of a much more ambitious future,” says cabinet member for culture Anne Clarke. “But we have come a long way.”

The festival means to stoke creative spirit in Barnet, but also to celebrate how much there already is. “I’d say it’s about putting Barnet on the map,” says Robert Elms, “but the map of London would look very odd without it.”

Light and Flight takes place on 14th and 15th November at Finchley Lakeside N3 2QT, and 21st and 22nd of November at the RAF Museum and artsdepot.

Entry is free; details can be found here: https://www.lightandflight.co.uk/

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