Royal Docks announces ‘Royal Docks Originals’ a new biennial festival from London’s Cultural Engine

Metamorphosis: a celebration of transformation and journeys

Inspired by its industrial heritage, iconic landscape, and tapestry of cultures, the Royal Docks is becoming London’s Cultural Engine – an innovative ideas factory and centre of creative production that will power the City’s cultural life. Royal Docks Originals will celebrate how this part of London is evolving and its significant place in the city’s rich, international history. Built over 100 years ago, the Royal Docks played a key part in the industrial revolution and Britain’s era of colonial trade. Today, as London’s only enterprise zone and with one of the UK’s youngest, most diverse communities calling it home, the area shines as a beacon of innovation and possibility.

Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, said: “Royal Docks Originals is a phenomenal celebration of everything that makes Newham extraordinary—our creativity, our diversity, and our community spirit. We’re so proud that residents, workers, and students from across the borough are coming together with leading Newham creatives and businesses to honour the area’s rich heritage, people, and places.

This festival is about more than culture for culture’s sake. It’s about creating real opportunities for our residents, supporting local businesses, and building a borough where everyone can thrive. From young people exploring creative careers to families enjoying free performances in public spaces, this is culture that belongs to all of us. It’s part of our mission to make Newham a fairer, more vibrant and more connected place to live—and I can’t wait to see our communities come together to make it unforgettable.”

Royal Docks Originals is a powerful expression of Newham’s 15-year Cultural Strategy, ‘Building Newham’s Creative Future’—embedding culture in everyday life, supporting local talent, and creating real opportunities for residents. It reflects the borough’s commitment to community wealth building and inclusive growth, ensuring that investment in culture benefits local people and strengthens the local economy.

The festival programme

Royal Docks Originals is a creative endeavour that involves the whole Royal Docks community. From public art and performance made here with world-class collectives to open calls for new artist commissions, the festival programme has been curated in collaboration with residents, schools and creative workspaces, using creative expression to tell their stories, shine a light on untold pasts, and reflect the evolving face of the neighbourhood.

Metamorphosis: a celebration of transformation and journeys features a site-specific fire installation that will ignite the festival, public art that celebrates life and loss, neon deities exploring themes of water and female empowerment and a botanical mural reconnecting passersby to nature.

For Royal Docks Originals 2025, the Royal Docks Team has appointed Jonathan Holloway and Hive Curates to lead its festival commissions. Jonathan Holloway is Creative Director of Rekindling by Company Carabosse, with Associate Directors Josephine Burton and Cristina Catalina of Dash Arts directing the creative content, including oral histories recorded by Eastside Community Heritage. Hive Curates is curating and producing a series of public artworks that includes newly commissioned pieces by renowned artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Graphic Rewilding. These commissions were made in collaboration with local communities, as well as an open call for local artists, who will be making artworks that will pop up throughout the three weeks of the festival.

Rekindling by Company Carabosse and Royal Docks communities

Compagnie Carabosse is a French artistic company celebrated for transforming public spaces with striking, interactive fire installations; a leading name in outdoor art worldwide. Rekindling will be the company’s first event in London since in 2016, when they were commissioned as part of London’s Burning, commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London.

Rekindling is a spectacular large-scale fire installation inspired by the emergence of Royal Docks as an area and accompanied by a soundscape that captures that evolution, ​​inspired by oral histories collected from communities across Newham and live performance by local musicians.

Artworks by Chila Kumari Singh Burman

Chila Burman is a renowned British-Indian multidisciplinary artist celebrated for her vibrant, politically-charged artworks devoted to challenging stereotypes, and placing alternative perspectives of Britishness at the forefront of art history.

Royal Reflections and Sweet Hope is a brand-new artwork by Chila that celebrates the Docks’ South Asian heritage by transforming a TfL IFS Cloud (Cable Car) kiosk next to City Hall into a vibrant entrance to Royal Docks. On one side will be several neons reflecting themes of transformation, decolonisation and Docks’ heritage of sugar and ice cream factories; whilst on the other side will be a large wave collage in Chila’s punk-style, depicting objects offered by Oasis High School Students thinking about their own relationship to the Docks, home and belonging.

Chila’s iconic, full-size neon tiger sculpture, My Tiger Janu, will visit the Docks as part of his global travels around Chila’s major commissions! Janu will sit atop the same Cable Car kiosk next to Royal Reflections and Sweet Hope, for a full year, facing towards City Hall.

In addition, Chila’s renowned Tuk Tuk, emblazoned with Hindu deities, glitter, bindis and tigers, with accompanying films based on Chila's own stories and experiences, will also be on display throughout the festival.

Blue Sunset by Graphic Rewilding

Graphic Rewilding is a creative duo led by artists Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski, who transform public and urban spaces with large-scale, botanical and wildlife-inspired art, aiming to uplift and inspire, reflecting the powerful effect that nature has on well-being.

Blue Sunset responds to the metamorphosis of the area with its design being shaped by local residents. The flowers and insects depicted in the mural have been suggested by the community, referencing the history and evolution of the landscape surrounding the Royal Docks as well as their personal stories of flowers and the memories they evoke. Blue Sunset is an ode to the energy, diversity and shared stories of the Docks.

Other work in the festival includes:

Arrivals + Departures by YARA + DAVINA

YARA + DAVINA are a social practice artist duo known for creating ambitious public artworks that respond to site, context and audience. Unfailingly inventive, they use formats from within popular culture to make works which are accessible, poetic and universal.

Their work Arrivals + Departures is a public art installation that takes the form of a large, interactive dot-flip display board—similar to those that used to be seen at train stations—which invites members of the public to submit the names of people who have arrived (births) and departed (deaths), as well as those living as a way to acknowledge, celebrate and commemorate. Names may range from the personal to the political, from unsung heroes to national treasures. After touring the world over the last 5 years, Arrivals Departures is finding its permanent home in heritage building Compressor House.

IFS Cloud Cable Car X Royal Docks Originals

Over one weekend of the festival the IFS Cloud Cable Car will become a moving stage for live music, poetry, and visual art. Three commissioned artists — a composer, a poet, and a visual artist — will co-create unique, world-premiere pieces live with passengers aboard the iconic IFS Cloud Cable Car.

A creative hub

With its epic scale, iconic landscape and pioneering spirit, the Royal Docks is already home to a vibrant community of creatives hard at work making and creating in workspaces surrounding the waterfront. Royal Docks Originals builds on this and partners with artists and communities to create and present extraordinary cultural work in a growing cluster of creative production workspaces and facilities that are bringing new energy to the area.

The Pump House will be open throughout the festival as a hub for visitors to explore the programme, chat to the team, participate in an activity, see an intimate performance, learn about Royal Docks heritage, or just to recharge.

The full programme for the first Royal Docks Originals festival Metamorphosis: a celebration of transformation and journeys will be announced in Summer 2025.

Wider activities to enjoy throughout Royal Docks Originals:

• The Royal Docks Community Day, as part of the celebration of the completion of the Royal Docks Corridor, will see outdoor arts performances and creative workshops for all ages to enjoy, in and around Pontoon Dock and Thames Barrier Park.
• The Docks Factor, the final project by the Royal Docks’ Dock Local Panel. A selection of local creative performances will emulate the X-Factor in a fantastic show of talent from across the area.
• The Factory, Tate Institute and Millenium Mills will be open for tours, a rare opportunity to visit three remarkable heritage buildings.
• Compressor House will host a number of events, talks and installations, from reminiscence projects to film screenings and digital artwork by young people.
• Creative workspace tours of The Factory, Royal Docks Centre of Sustainability, and Bow Arts. Glimpse behind the closed doors of some of the most prominent workspaces and studios in the Royal Docks and see pioneering creative work being forged and developed.
• PolliNation – a Royal Docks Schools programme showcase across sites inspired by Graphic Rewilding.
• Youth Guides’ Artworks Tours by The Line’s Youth Guides, a group of 18-21-year-olds who will be leading tours of the artworks around the Royal Docks
• Royal Docks Market - Originals Edition, a special market for intriguing gifts and wares, plus music, and entertainment from local artists and creatives.
• Creative Careers Day will spotlight entry routes into East London’s creative and cultural industries and bring together local young people and key local employers.
• Visitors can experience London from a whole new perspective by booking a swim via Love Open Water Swimming - no pool lanes, just pure open water freedom.
• Sweheat Sauna turns up the Nordic heat with wood-fired sessions overlooking the water and the option to plunge into the Docks to cool down.
• WakeUp Docklands is London’s only watersports centre offering paddleboarding, wakeboarding, and a beach bar - a one-stop shop for urban adventure on the water.
• The IFS Cloud Cable Car offers aerial views of London's skyline as it glides over the Thames between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks.
• The Royal Docks has tours and trails to suit all kinds of interests, from history to art, buildings to music. You can download a trail guide and head off on your own Royal Docks adventure to explore iconic buildings, striking architecture, vast open spaces and the exceptional waterfront.