Next Door 

City of London June 2025- June 2026

 

This street-facing retail activation - so called because it was ‘next door’ to our venue at 107 Leadenhall Street - was a black box theatre space downstairs with a rehearsal room upstairs that formerly housed a Farmer Js restaurant. We took the unit, stripped out and laid new floors, creating multi-functional spaces which housed performances, works-in-progress and workshops, as well as hosting roundtables for the City of London Corporation and the National Trust.

 

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Local Authority: City Of London 

Landlord Partner: Frontier Dragon

Activation Partner: Eastern City BID 

Programming Highlights 

House of Rumour presents: Story Pick + Mix (monthly storytelling night)

IRIS trio: An intimate evening of Jazz & Storytelling

Rebel Jam: Inside The Queerosphere Cabaret

House of Vox ​​platforming racialised and marginalised voices with poetry, performance and storytelling

Dialectics of Erasure with Mudar Al-Khufash & Bold Mellon Collective

Revolution Stage - The Value of Money with Marianne Design and Entertainment

REFORMED by Tommy Fletcher Mcmeekin

Residency Sharing: Rajeswari Ramaswamy

An Evening Of Afrocentric Poetry with The Man With Many Faces

Revolution Stage - A Shared Taste of the Revolution

Alibi: Dead Air - immersive Jubensha-inspired murder mystery

This Time is Different (work in progress) by Zhou Ning

Make With Mermaid crafting workshops 

You Are Here Festival - MFA final performances, Central School Of Speech and Drama 

Exhibitions 

We had 3 exhibitions in the Next Door window, these installations were seen by a constant stream of people - from bankers to artists, tourists to theatre-goers. 

The Next Door streetfront was an unconventional exhibition space bridging London’s business district with the hub of creativity that is Theatre Deli. With such a unique positioning, we chose art that reflected and connected with our vibrant artistic community and venues. 

 

Jilo - Skyscrapers 

A series of portraits featuring 8 London based creatives who are all making strides in their respected practices and easily considered pillars of the creative community. Each artist has been spotlighted for carving out their own path and communicating a creative voice that cuts through the noise - proving that community can exist in the flux of the city. Much like the buildings that stand all around our venue, these individuals are monumental and their impact on the London scene cannot be overlooked. 

Displayed for the first time during Black History Month, the portraits explore the intersectionality of what constitutes Black identity today. They bring queerness and migration into our conversations of identity, alongside playing artistically with texture and colour. JILO presents identity as inclusive and not restrictive, and this exhibition showcases the expansive nature of Blackness and Britishness, beyond what can be seen at first glance. While JILO have expressed an underlying pressure to previously show blackness through trauma, enslavement and objectification, with Skyscrapers, JILO choose to show identity through a much lighter lens, through celebration and pride.

The Fabric Left to Us by Valentine Gigandet and Emeline Beroud

An installation by Valentine and Emeline that explores the materials left behind by textile artist Mel Heneke Eliot, using hands-on research to reflect on memory, learning from past practice, and the value of experimentation today.

The Healing Heart 

Who among us has never experienced heartbreak? Heartbreak that cracks our heart open and leaves it in pieces? Where our whole world shatters and the new one has not yet come to be?

Healing Heart touches on the universal experience of broken heart, human resilience and transformation through pain, both collectively and individually.

A big Heart as a centre piece surrounded by a large sculpture of a snake coiling around it as if protecting and transforming it at the same time. Colours are bright and bold, vibrating with shapes, circles and lines, geometrical shapes almost dancing.

There is a feeling of celebration and joy in the air. Lightness that comes after a battle - after the hardship that was necessary to overcome.

A broken heart went through a painful transformation to become larger, stronger and to shine brighter than ever before. Heart can sing and dance now and so do we.