Hackney Wicked
Arts festival returns to the Wick
Hackney Wicked returns this month for its third instalment in as many years. Founded by resident Wickites, designed to promote local talent and priding itself on a home grown, grass-roots ethos, this neighbourhood arts festival highlights how a once under-populated, industrial slab of East London has bloomed in to one of the city’s most thriving artistic communities. With over 600 studios in the area and allegedly more artists per capita than anywhere else in the world, the three-day event across Hackney Wick and Fish Island will involve over 400 artists and 20-odd galleries, plus community groups, schools and a plethora of performers, musicians, comedians and film-makers.
Participating art spaces including Elevator, Schwartz Gallery, Maryland Studios, Stour Space and the View Tube will be opening doors on specially curated exhibitions, alongside warehouse live work studios, outdoor art installations, various pop-up events and graffiti jams in the yard of 92 White Post Lane, with artists painting the renowned Hackney Wick ‘Hall of Fame’. While the festival promises to showcase the best of the East End’s fresh creative talent and provide a platform for lesser known artists to surface, Anna Rondina, Caroline Styles, Deviant Comics, the Die Mortal, Jacobo Natoli, Luke Hart and Mark Bayley are just some of the artists and performers who’ll be stepping up to the stage.
Other attractions will include on-going live music in Queen’s yard, art treasure hunts, art tours, food and drink stalls, a fete fundraiser, wellbeing workshops, the annual coracle regatta on the river Lea, a Scottish Weirdos and Cosmic Megabrain collaboration involving dinner-based performance and video art, and cabaret and comedy at the Peanut Factory Stage including performances by Hackney Wick’s Tax Deductible theatre company. The festival will be closing with a massive carnival-style soiree on the Sunday, with music, processions, BBQs and the ceremonial burning of a wicker man made by artist Adam Beale.
Thanks to a recent influx of creative-minded people to the area, Hackney Wick is now a dynamic corner of London with a burgeoning arts community, and its annual festival an increasingly vital event in the summer calendar. For all those interested in checking out the new blood of contemporary art, don’t miss out. We’ll see you there.
Hackney Wicked runs Friday July 30 to Sunday August 1.For more information visit www.hackneywicked.com
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