EPAS trip to Southend City Jam 2025

On Saturday, 30 August 2025, European Parliament ambassadors Erdem Gultekin, Jayden O'Brien and Sebastian Rapley Mende paid a visit to Southend-on-Sea to attend the 2025 installation of Southend City Jam, the largest street art festival in the UK.

Held every summer in Southend Central, Southend City Jam brings together local, national and international artists over three days of celebration. The festival was founded in 2022 to mark Southend's ascension to city status. It is co-organised by Southend City Council, Pryzm Arts and Ster.UPC, who aim "to showcase the best that Southend City's urban art movement has to offer".

Now celebrating its fourth year, Southend City Jam has quickly grown to become the largest street art festival in the entire United Kingdom. Our ambassadors decided to pay a visit to this year's festival, which was also attended by several European street artists, as part of their wider preparations for the 2025-2026 academic year and to witness first-hand the celebrations of European culture.

Our ambassadors began their journey together by walking on foot from Westcliffe-on-Sea and Chalkwell, two suburbs of the city, along the seafront to the city centre. On the way, they passed the statue of the late Sir David Amess, the commemorated "father of the city" of Southend-on-Sea.

Pictured: Statue of the late Sir David Amess, who is remembered as the Father of Southend-on-Sea.

In his lifetime, Amess served as the Conservative member of Parliament for Southend West from 1997 to 2021, when he was murdered by an Islamist terrorist. He is best known for his service to Southend-on-Sea as the leading champion and campaigner for its much-desired city status, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 in his honour. Amess is also noted for his devoted campaigning on animal rights, health care and warm homes, as well as his parliamentary bipartisanship.

Our ambassadors also passed Southend's famous amusement park Adventure Island, or more widely known by its former name Peter Pan's. From Peter Pan's, they embarked to Southend City Centre, where the first Southend City Jam murals could be seen beside a local accordion player.

Pictured: A local accordion player performs in front of the first Southend City Jam murals spotted by our ambassadors.

More murals could be seen further into the city centre, alongside the city's trademark sign of inflatable letters. Junior ambassador Sebastian Rapley Mende, who is also the environment officer on Southend Youth Council, worked on this sign for the city while helping with the city council's local plan.

Pictured: One of the many murals being painted in Southend City Centre to mark Southend City Jam 2025.

After taking part in the festival, our ambassadors had some food in the local Burger King before shopping at the Victoria Shopping Centre, where they also came across "Gaza Cola", a Coca Cola knock-off brand created by Palestinians in London to promote and fill the gap left by the boycott of Coca Cola for its support of Israel in its invasion and occupation of the Palestinian territory of Gaza since 2023.

Pictured: Gaza Cola, a Palestinian knock-off brand of Coca Cola, seen in the shelves of a shop in Southend.

Our ambassadors then ended their journey by heading to Leigh-on-Sea, where they parted ways. Our ambassadors will now take the lessons learnt from the trip to organise more trips for EPAS in the coming academic year, which will begin in September 2025. Stay tuned for more!