Independent Cultural Strategist & Programmer

I know this sector because I've worked every side of it.

As a journalist, a strategist, and the person who has to make it actually happen.

I work with boroughs, developers, cultural institutions, and artists to build strategies, programmes, and partnerships that reflect the places - and the people - they're actually for.

Get in touch
Faizan Fiaz
  • Cultural Strategy
  • Curation & Programming
  • Community Partnerships
East London & Margate Based here. Working across London and the South East.
Trustee · Margate Creative Land Trust
Faizan Fiaz at V&A East

In the room

"Partnerships work when the decision makers are actually in the room. I know how to find them, bring them together, and gently hold everyone, including myself, to what we've agreed."

As Cultural Strategy Lead at the London Borough of Newham, I built partnerships across the borough's full cultural landscape - East Bank, Excel London, Royal Docks Team, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, MCM Comic Con, Immerse LDN and ABBA Voyage.

East London

Work with me

What I do

A cultural strategy is only as good as what happens after it's written - in a budget meeting, a planning committee, or in front of an audience.

01

For boroughs & public bodies

Making the case for culture internally - across directorates, through budget cycles - and building delivery plans that hold, from visitor economy strategy to creative employment and skills programmes.

02

For developers & placemakers

Cultural strategy built in from the start, not bolted on after planning permission - programming, partnerships and the institutional relationships that make it credible.

03

For cultural institutions & festivals

Curating, programming and producing - with particular depth in South Asian diaspora culture, LGBTQ+ histories and community-rooted live events.

Background

I grew up in Newham. Most of the institutions arriving here are still learning what that means.

My path here wasn't a straight line. I started as a reporter, covering arts and culture alongside foreign news for the Associated Press, CGTN, the BBC and the Daily Telegraph. From there I moved into communications, then heritage delivery with Newham Heritage Month, and eventually cultural production at the London Borough of Newham - work that led to two and a half years leading cultural strategy for the borough. Alongside all of it, I made a documentary and spent two decades as a community organiser.

I grew up in east London and reported on the 2012 Olympics from the site East Bank now stands on. I've reported from Pakistan, Turkey, Libya and Egypt. That ground - east London, the diaspora, the global South - is not abstract to me. It's where I'm from and what I've lived.

Outside of work, I DJ under the name Faizan Uncl - techno, house, UK garage and South Asian music.

Faizan Fiaz in Margate Old Town
  • Strategy Cultural Strategy Lead, London Borough of Newham - led the Cultural Delivery Plan, the London Borough of Culture bid presentation, and London's first Cultural Passport, a digital platform connecting residents to institutions across the borough. Built partnerships across East Bank, Excel London, Royal Docks Team, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, MCM Comic Con, Immerse LDN and ABBA Voyage.
  • Platforms Now developing new digital tools that widen access and strengthen the relationship between institutions and the people they serve.
  • Economy Contributed to putting Newham on the visitor economy map - Stratford is now a featured destination on visitlondon.com - and led on creative employment and skills programmes for residents.
  • Curation Produced Uncle Faizan's Reparations Café for Duckie. Newham Loves Creatives (sold out) - a showcase and networking event for creative entrepreneurs and freelancers. Previously exhibited and held workshops and talks at Barbican and Queer Britain (sold out); building a community archive with Bishopsgate Institute (the Imaan archive). Q&A host, BFI Flare 2025.
  • Film Poshida - award-winning documentary on LGBTQ+ lives in Pakistan, screened at 25+ international festivals. London Writers Award recipient for a memoir-in-progress.
  • Journalism Foreign correspondent: AP, CGTN, BBC, Daily Telegraph. Reported from Pakistan, Turkey, Libya and Egypt. Eight years based in Pakistan. Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and Arabic speaker. Growing interest in internet and online culture.
  • Community Co-founder, Imaan (1999) - world's longest-running LGBTQ+ Muslim charity. Chair of trustees for several years. Creator of the world's first Muslim Pride event.

Where I work

Rooted in two places at once.

East London

Born here. Still here.

East London is where I grew up - the region currently receiving more major cultural infrastructure investment than anywhere else in Britain. I built the East Bank partnerships from inside the London Borough of Newham. I reported on the 2012 Olympics from the site East Bank now stands on. I know the communities these institutions are supposed to serve, because I am one of them.

Faizan Fiaz on Margate beach

Margate

Embedded in a coastal creative ecosystem

Margate has grassroots culture alongside the landmark Turner Contemporary, Tracey Emin's TKE Studios, Dreamland, an off-season creative programme that keeps going once the day-trippers leave, and an annual Restaurant Week that punches above its weight for a town this size. It's around 1 hour 20 minutes on the train from Margate to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park - Sadler's Wells, V&A East and ABBA Voyage inside it, Stratford Cross beside it, and a new Stratford Junction district taking shape nearby - and yet the other half of the story is one I recognise from home. Deprivation and social need sitting alongside creative ambition and rapidly rising rents. The same question I've spent my career inside: who gets to shape a place, and who a regeneration is actually for.

I split my time here, I see beneath the surface, and I'm drawn to these environments precisely because they're complex. As a trustee of Margate Creative Land Trust, that's not abstract - it's community-owned land keeping creative space in local hands as the town changes. And based between two ends of the Thames Estuary Production Corridor, I sit inside the same infrastructure conversation from both directions: what east London's cultural boom means for the towns downriver, and what those towns need in return.

Trustee · Margate Creative Land Trust

Stay in touch

First to know about new work, curated opportunities, and events.

Occasional emails when there's something worth sharing - a new curatorial role, a festival announcement, a ticket link, or a creative opportunity worth passing on to others in the sector.

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Institutions & partners

I've worked alongside

East Bank V&A East Sadler's Wells East BBC Music Studios UCL East London College of Fashion Royal Docks Team Arts Council England GLA Culture Team LLDC London Borough of Newham Excel London Immerse LDN ABBA Voyage Greenwich & Docklands International Festival MCM Comic Con Ticket Bank UEL Barbican Queer Britain BFI Flare Duckie Film London East London Dance A New Direction Thames Estuary Production Corridor Margate Creative Land Trust

Let's build something that doesn't yet exist.

Available for cultural strategy consulting, curation, programming advisory, and creative partnerships - particularly with boroughs, developers, cultural institutions, and artists working at the edges of what's possible.

hello@faizanfiaz.com