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I’ve lived in London my entire life, mostly in Harlesden in the north-west. I went to a small school that was very multicultural. But I didn’t grow up thinking, “I’m having such a multicultural childhood.” I just went to school with lots of people who looked different from one another. It meant that I learnt about other people’s religions and experiences from a young age, and they learnt about mine too. It makes you realise that we don’t have to beef with each other because of how we look or what religion we practise. When I went to university, I realised that wasn’t everyone’s experience. But for me, it was normal and natural.
What I like about London is that there’s no part of it that’s just for rich people. After the second world war, they rebuilt a lot of community housing next to well-off areas, making a conscious choice to place high-density and bigger houses together so that we were always in conversation with each other. There were no purposefully ghettoised areas by design at that stage. You don’t come to London if you intend to remain closed-minded to other cultures and ways of living.
I’ve always liked to draw, but it was a trip to Trinidad when I was six that really switched me on the path to becoming a designer. It was the first time I understood the impact of how design could influence an environment – good design would mean that your house wasn’t boiling you alive. I ended up studying at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and did a master’s in design products at the Royal College of Art. I was lucky that a lot of the best architecture schools are in London, so I didn’t have to go too far to study. Architecture is still a significant influence on how I design product. I’m interested in space and how the body shows up in culture; a lot of my work explores the Black female body in abstract.
I always suggest staying in and exploring west London – you can really see the influence of the Caribbean diaspora there. My favourite shop, Mahogany Carnival Design, is around the corner from me in Harlesden; it makes all the costumes for the Notting Hill Carnival. The Bush Theatre in nearby Shepherd’s Bush shows quality Black theatre. Most recently I saw Not Your Superwoman there, starring Letitia Wright. I also go to The Tabernacle in Notting Hill to see art – last year Kerry James Marshall did a satellite exhibition there during his show at the Royal Academy.
There are good African and Caribbean restaurants all over the city. I moved to Tottenham a few years ago and love going to Chuku’s, a Nigerian tapas restaurant. My husband is vegan and they’ve done the impossible by veganising quite a few west African dishes, such as jollof rice and adalu, a Nigerian stew with honey beans and sweetcorn. I also love Peppers & Spice on Tottenham High Road; the callaloo patty, a vegan Jamaican pastry, is excellent. When I eat there, I eat. Sometimes I think, “Maybe I shouldn’t visit you so much?”
For more of a sit-down meal, Jumbi in Peckham does a Caribbean fusion roast on Sundays. It sums up what I like about the UK: we mix up British culture with international influences and create something new. I also do a lot of cooking at home and pick up ingredients from Ridley Road Market in Dalston, which has Jamaican, Trinidadian and Bajan influences. I remember going as a child. There’s a huge mural of a carnival scene saying, “Unite for Peace”. The colours are vibrant, which is helpful because London doesn’t always have blue skies. I’m happy Ridley Road is still there because a lot of the other markets don’t exist any more.
Down the road in Hackney you can visit Thomas J Price’s two 9ft bronze figures – a celebration of the Windrush generation – outside the Town Hall. I first saw his work in public in 2016 when he was doing a talk about his Numen sculptures – three large cast-aluminium heads – as part of Sculpture in the City, an annual art trail in the City of London. You can also visit Veronica Ryan’s installation honouring Caribbean cuisine nearby in Hackney Central. She’s taken fruit that people from the community will recognise and scaled them up to show their simple beauty.
Seed Archives is another space that I love. It’s open by appointment only and has objects and antiques from the Caribbean and Africa, as well as lots of books on more niche areas of the diaspora. You might find a text just on African head stools, or some obscure form of architecture. A lot of people go there just to do research. I use it as a library and a place to buy objects. I bought a coiled Nigerian bracelet there, as well as a candlestick holder that looks like my Gold Revolution Major ring. There are a lot of circles in my work, and the repetition and rhythm of the piece reminded me of the concentric patterns I use.
Hairdressers and nail salons have become community spaces. I go to Charlotte Mensah, off Portobello Road, for my hair. I love her. They serve cake, the hair oil smells amazing and they treat you wonderfully. When I wore my hair short, I ended up going to a barbers, Faisal in Harlesden, because I just thought they’d do a better job with a clipper. Faisal is also a photographer, lecturer and artist who works on large-scale bronze and brass sheets with acid etchings; there are a few of them hung in the barbers. Going to hairdressers is central to Black culture; I see them as our natural, cultural spas.
Platform: Simone Brewster is at the Design Museum, London W8, until January 2027
