2020 Vision

Arlo Parks

This winter, curl up with the warming sounds of this young British R&B singer. Parks’ pared-down, beautifully vulnerable songs are filled with great storytelling. Expect much more from this promising London teenager.

Tom Riddle

There can’t be many lifestyle coaches that advocate the sacrificing of such modern conveniences as trainers, but Tony Riddle cast his aside when he ran from Land’s End to John O’Groats. The self-styled “natural lifestyle coach” believes he can help others become stronger, more mindful and more deeply connected to nature in all aspects of life, from parenting to Pilates.

Ivan Blackstock

This British choreographer is wholly responsible for enabling street dance to step into the fine-art arena with his CRXSS PLATFXRM festival, which pairs the medium up with installations, digital artworks and films, as well as DJs, MCs and other musicians.

Sepake Angiama

The internationally acclaimed educator and curator – who has worked at the Hayward Gallery and Turner Contemporary and was the curator of Chicago Architecture Biennial will become the new artistic director of east London’s brilliant Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in January 2020. Expect her to shake things up; Angiama’s interests include sex, society and sci-fi.

Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald

The founders of 6a Architects won a RIBA award for their work on the South London Gallery building the Fire Station, and a Design of the Year nomination for their MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. We’re even more excited about the two light-industrial buildings 6a are bringing to the Greenwich Peninsula's Design District.

Charlie Dark

This poet, DJ and public speaker might have made his name back in the 90s as part of the slo-mo hip-hop trio Attica Blues, but these days he’s speeding up the city with Run Dem Crew, a capital-wide collective that brings people together through a shared love of running.

Greentea Peng

There’s something deeply soothing about this south-east London singer’s take on psychedelic soul. Not glitzy or brag-filled, but instead chilled and atmospheric, her music brings to mind late 90s greats such as Lauryn Hill – the perfect antidote to contemporary big-city pressure.

Lee Tiernan

The humble flatbread and charcoal grill become powerful tools in the hands of Tiernan, founder chef of London’s Black Axe Mangal. Here high and low influences – think smoked cod’s roe and a contemporary take on the Findus crispy pancake – come together, creating some of the capital’s most satisfying cuisine.

Emmanuelle Moureaux

This French-born, Toyko-based architect and artist has brought together Japanese screen-style interior design techniques with enchanting coloured elements to create beautiful engaging installations across the globe. Look out for her show, Slices of Time, inspired in part by the Greenwich meridian, at Now Gallery in spring 2020.

Phoebe Eclair-Powell

She might be the daughter of comedian Jenny Eclair, but Eclair-Powell's play Shed: Exploded View, a non-linear examination of domestic violence, is more likely to move you to tears. The script just won the prestigious Bruntwood prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for playwriting.

Emma Breschi

Scouted via Instagram, she’s modelled for Vivienne Westwood and been signed to the same agency as Naomi Campbell, yet this Londoner of Filipino-Italian descent still finds time to campaign on causes close to her heart, such as Love Not Landfill, a pop-up fashion drive encouraging shoppers to dig into the second-hand rails to come up with style.

Mark 'Lord Logs' Parr

If you enjoying the tang of great food cooked over fragrant wood and charcoal, then you’ve probably got this guy to thank. Parr’s London Log Company has found a delicious little niche, supplying high-grade natural charcoal and logs to some of the city’s best restaurants, lighting a fire under flame-grilled cuisine.

Yuri Suzuki

What’s that sound? Could it be the uncompromising creativity of this Japanese-born artist, inventor and designer, whose crazy aural creations and installations continue to delight and beguile the capital’s curious? Catch his show, Sound in Mind, at the Design Museum until 2 February 2020.

Krept and Konan

Not many British hip-hop duos make it out of their 20s, but Casyo “Krept” Johnson, and Karl “Konan” Wilson are proving just how good grown men sound with a mic in their hand. Add a headline show at The O2 arena, a south London dessert restaurant, Crepes & Cones, and their musical outreach Positive Direction Foundation, and it really does look like the city is theirs.

Dolan Bergin and Ajay Jayaram

Techno’s new-found position as the smart choice when it comes to clubs, rather than the preserve of shaven-headed men, is partly down to Bergin and Jayaram, two seasoned urban night-time professionals whose promotions company, The Hydra, is booking the world’s best DJs into the city’s smartest clubs.

Molly Thompson-Smith

You might not expect to find great climbing talent in central London, yet this 22-year-old climber is heading to the 2020 Olympics in Toyko, when the sport makes its debut at the games. Thompson-Smith first chalked her hands at the Westway Climbing Wall close to her house, on her seventh birthday, and has been scaling the heights ever since.

Ian Hart

If one distiller is adding just a little more flavour to London’s newfound love of gin, it has to be Ian Hart’s Sacred Spirits. This family-run, high-end distillery, based in Highgate, uses vacuum distillation – dropping the pressure, rather than heating the liquid – to create more nuanced drinks.