a day festival of music and performance by river
dates: 19 July 2025
A day festival of music, performance and DJs from the award-winning Brainchild team.
Introducing Desire Lines! Our intimate, multi-arts day-festival this July at one of South East London’s most precious and little-known gems, the Shipwright. The first thing we've done that's wholly ours since we went on hiatus in 2022 🧡
A house and garden party right on the river, this will be a beautiful reunion with an all-day programme of live music, DJs, theatre/performance works in progress, talks and conversations, art installations and marketplace for DIY art, culture, zines and activism, as well as delicious food and drinks from some of our favourite SE local independents. A chance to see all those people you only danced with at Brainchild, to spend time with people you love and connect with new kindred spirits.
‘Desire Lines’ are the paths we make when we go where we want, how we want, despite the route that's been set for us. When reflecting on what we wanted to put on this Summer, this is the spirit we kept returning to. As a theme, this is about conjuring the intentional and joyful energy of doing what we want, forever (to quote our friends at Local Action) while also holding space for the reality that sometimes that is really hard!!
Whether you're running a creative business, sustaining careers as artists, or just trying to be expressed and fully yourself in today’s climate of over-work… we want this day to hold you wherever you are, to recharge you and bring you strength and joy. The artists taking part are encouraged to share exactly what they want, feel safe to take creative risks, and our programme of conversations will all be about learning from each other - our thwarted plans, how we make it work, how we build resilience.
Lineup coming very soon.
Sign Up to Brainchild’s Mailing List
Sign up to Brainchild’s Mailing List to be the first to hear about this day festival, plus other news and events.
A message from Brainchild HQ:
Hello World!
After a 𝓶𝓾𝓬𝓱 needed break, we’re excited to tell you that there are brainchild plans afoot. (Pro tip: put the 19th July in your diaries!)
We’re re-making our website into something that celebrates our archive of stories, photos and videos of ten years of Brainchild Festival, and also signposts all our upcoming projects. Watch this space.
For now, we’ll be running this pretty organically and DIY. We will do projects and events because we want to, when ideas feel ready and the time is right, rather than because a business model demands that we do. We will be re-imagining how we work as well as what we do, seeking to maximise all that is fun, collaborative, creative and communal in our process.
We’re going to be putting far less on social media, so please sign up to our emails to stay in the loop.
We know many of you will be wondering whether there’s a camping festival on the horizon, and the answer is: we aren’t ruling out a camping festival 2.0 in the future, but for now we are flexing some different muscles, and we’re very excited to tell you about all that’s to come.
Big love as always, Brainchild HQ