EASTeight » Gareth Carey

Obama’s people

Gareth Carey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:55:51 +0000

Originally published in the New York Times magazine, this series of photographs by Nadav Kander is a collection of 52 portraits of the members of Barack Obama’s White House staff. Those featured include behind-the-scenes personnel such as aides, speechwriters and special advisers, as well as leading politicians such as Vice-President Joe Biden and the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Taken in December 2008 and January 2009, the selection gives a snapshot of the early Obama presidency with Kander capturing the variety of emotions Obama’s people were feeling at that point of momentous change: some show happy astonishment at what they have achieved, others, an enthusiasm to get on with the nation’s business. Each subject was photographed in democratic fashion, each in front of the same white background, and each subject was also asked to bring along an object that had some personal importance to them or that reflected their personality. Although Kander did not photograph Barack Obama for this series, he has photographed him at other times. He has also previously photographed Tony Blair and Desmond Tutu. Kander was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet prize. to 10th October

Hackney Street Photographs 1978-2008

Gareth Carey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:38:13 +0000

This exhibition by Alan Denney is a fascinating collection of Hackney people and their places from the last three decades. The body of work was found by Angela Stapleford (who exhibited at Chats Palace last winter). Denney has lived and worked in Hackney all his adult life, and his interest in photography goes back to his family’s collection of photographs he was shown in his childhood.

He says, “Those old photographs showed me how the pleasure of looking could lead you on to an understanding of how individuals participated in history and how some of them could become its victims.”

His relationship with photography developed as he discovered some of the 1960s classic documentary image makers. In particular, Henri Cartier-Bresson was a great inspiration. Denney says, “I liked his photographs of people: unaware of the camera, just getting on uninterruptedly with their lives.” His work from the 70s and 80s reflects the harsh political and economic struggles of those times which had a big impact on inner London boroughs like Hackney. Commenting on more recent changes in the borough, Denney says, “It’s a sort of progress I suppose but, beyond the pockets of gentrification, Hackney still has high levels of deprivation…In the face of all these problems and hardships people still carve out a life for themselves and I still think it’s worthwhile to record them doing it.” The exhibition, organised by Photochats, is a contribution to the annual East London Photomonth Festival.
1st October to 22nd November

Open space

Gareth Carey — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:47:29 +0000

Groundwork East London (GWEL) has recently secured funding from West Hackney Parochial Charity to start the process of improving the historical open space known as West Hackney Recreation Ground (WHRG), just a stone’s throw from the border of E8. This will involve undertaking a number of key historical assessments plus wide-ranging community consultation to create a costed master plan. The project has been developed in partnership with the Parochial Church Council and the Rector Niall Weir over the last six months.
There will therefore be a series of consultation events in November to look at how the site is currently being used and to develop proposals for its future. WHRG is situated on the south side of Manse Road. The main church, St Paul’s, fronts Stoke Newington High Street just before the southern end of the one way system.
The original West Hackney Parish Church was built in the mid 1820s to cater for Hackney’s rapidly increasing population. It was designed by the architect Robert Smirke whose son was responsible for the design of the Reading Room at the British Museum. The church itself was severely damaged in WW2 and replaced with a more contemporary building in the 1950s designed by Nugent Cachemaille-Day who was also involved with the garden city movement.
The recreation ground to the rear of the church was established out of the original burial ground in the late 19th century as an open space to provide for the people of Hackney. This, and the gardens at St John at Hackney – recently the focus of another renovation programme led by GWEL – were two of the first such sites to be created in London and originally supported by the Metropolitan Gardens Association.
In recent years the site has fallen into significant decline and it is hoped that the pieces of work described above will start the process of improvement. It is anticipated that a master plan for the site will be in draft form around March/April 2009.
To obtain local views, there will be a number of drop-in events for residents and interested groups on the following dates in November:
Saturday 15th 10am-2pm Stoke Newington Farmers’ Market
Wednesday 19th 4-8pm St Paul’s Church Hall
Sunday 23rd 11.30am-3.30pm St Paul’s Church Hall
A postcard survey will also be delivered to local residents. There will be an online questionnaire if you wish to respond in more detail.

w: www.groundwork-surveys.org.uk/westhackneyrecreationground
t: 020 8985 1755
e: matthew.carrington@groundworkeastlondon.org

The Old Ship – a British Classic

Gareth Carey — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:42:04 +0000

Urban Inns, the company behind The Old Ship on Mare Street, is dedicated to modernising a forgotten British Classic. The company recently explained its ethos to EASTeight magazine:
“All of our Inns, like our first, will be given a thorough makeover whilst making every effort to emphasise the original design and character of the building. It’s important to our team to keep the personality and history alive in each and every location…celebrating a forgotten tradition, The British Inn.
Our first of what will become a chain of 20 Inns, The Old Ship is set out with a welcoming contemporary atmosphere where our guests can dine on our modern British fare, relax over a pint of ale, try some award-winning British wines as well as stay the night in one of ten beautifully appointed rooms…all at an affordable price!
Welcome to Urban Inns.”

Photographing the world

Gareth Carey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Two local venues are showing photographic exhibitions this month, each dealing with very different issues.
At Chats Palace, at Brooksby’s Walk, E9, photographer and E8 resident Asya Gefter is showing ‘Forgotten man in the urban societies of Cuba and Russia’ (below) in which she aims to reflect the reality of everyday life for the young and old in these countries. Born in Moscow in 1980, Asya grew up in an apartment of a typical Moscow tower block.
The exhibition runs throughout May and into June, and is part of the ‘Photochats’ photography project at Chats Palace. Other events in the project include one-day printing courses and workshops, portrait courses and a summer series of seminars on the history of photography. More information about these events can be obtained from Peter Young on 020 8986 9283. The venue also offers the hire of their darkroom and a black and white film processing service.
Chats also holds its May Day Weekend Market and Bazaar on 3rd May, including cake stalls, bargain stalls, tombola, and DJs.
Meanwhile, and also showing throughout May, Space Studios on Mare Street is showing ’40 Stations’ (right), an international project by Turkish photographer Muammer Yanmaz which focuses on immigration and the changing nature of international borders. The exhibition shows photographs of 40 Turkish migrants in London tube stations of their choice. To complement this exhibition British photographer Annabel Elston has been commissioned to create a series in response: photographing 40 prominent members of the British community in Turkey.
The Space Studios exhibition is the first UK showing of the two projects and they will later tour Turkey, Tokyo and Berlin.

Barley Massey

Gareth Carey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Barley Massey runs the successful shop/studio Fabrications on Broadway Market. Here, she reminisces over the last eight years on the Broadway and the growing interest in eco design and crafted work.

What were your first impressions of the Broadway when you set up shop?
When the Council agreed to rent me a derelict shop on Broadway Market ten years ago, some of my friends thought I was challenged! (They’ve since changed their tune.) But I thought it would be a great location to set up my textile design studio with a ‘window onto the world’. I was impressed with how creative the area was: such a mix of traditional and new shops, there seemed to be something for everyone. There were also a lot of boarded up shops at this time. It’s been exciting witnessing the arrival of new businesses and being involved, along with other BMTRA members, in setting up the Saturday market.
So what makes Fabrications special?
Since opening its doors in June 2000, Fabrications has been dedicated to contemporary textiles and design through regularly-changing exhibitions, displays, events and workshops run by me and other local designers and artists. And over the years our window displays have become notorious ‘ from dresses made from rubber gloves, a giant inflatable fabric heart filling the window at Valentine’s, to knitted vegetables and cakes.
Meanwhile, downstairs in the studio area I’ve transformed several tons of Hackney’s waste into beautiful and functional items. Old bicycle inner tubes from London Fields Cycles become cushions, floor mats, wall panelling, counter covers and costumes. Clothing from St Joseph’s hospice becomes shirt & tie cushions, throws and bags.
It seems you were one of the earlier creators of green products – have you noticed a change in people’s attitudes to them?
Oh yes, most definitely. When I first started my business I had to work hard to get away from some of the negative associations of working with recycled or reused materials. Now, green design is considered quite trendy! The demand for my products and services has gone up tenfold. As well as selling my designs at Fabrications I also supply a number of other ‘ethical’ shops including actor Colin Firth’s new shop ‘Eco’ in Chiswick and Oliver Heath’s (of ‘Changing Rooms’) EcoCentric.
And what about the original crafted work you sell?
The craft element has also been important. I think people are re-appreciating good quality craftsmanship, original design and buying local. There is also a huge movement towards making your own and getting crafty with your friends and family. Our knitting + Crochet classes (sewing coming up for the summer months!) have become very popular.
I hear your skills have been in great demand?
Well, I have been invited to pass on inspiration and share my textile skills at several London venues and events including at The Barbican, The Royal Festival Hall, The Newham Lord Mayor’s show, The Spice Festival, and last month I was at Hackney Museum teaching knitting with plastic bags to coincide with their current exhibition about shops in Hackney. I am really proud that I was invited to be included in the exhibition (along with a few other familiar Broadway shop keepers’ faces).
What advice would you give to a small business just starting up?
I am really happy with how my business has grown and is now flourishing. Hard work and perseverance does pay off in the end as well as the support and interest of my loyal customers ‘ Thankyou!

Fabrications
a: 7 Broadway Market, E8 4PH
t: 020 7275 8043
w: www.fabrications1.co.uk

A Mural to Remember

Gareth Carey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

If you are looking for swathes of colour and vibrant celebration in the heart of Dalston, you could do worse than stand opposite the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural on Dalston Lane. After 23 years the mural still looks impressive: its colours are remarkably fresh and the pure busy-ness of the figures and setting portrayed in the mural is superbly uplifting.
This uplifting mood was what the mural intended to provide when it was planned in 1983. These were the heady, intensely political days of the early 1980s: Thatcher was stamping her mark as prime minister, the world was often a frightening place due to the ‘Cold War’, and there had been riots in Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth and even Dalston in 1981. But the mural was not just a response to the riots; its references are wider than that. It reflects the numerous interests, political forces and pressure groups of those times. Almost every left-of-centre social concern is represented in the mural: anti-capitalism; anti-nuclear proliferation; greenpeace; the miners’ strike; the peace movement. And, of course, the mural portrays ‘multi-culturalism’ in action. Although it could be said that some of these concerns are now being addressed and others have become mainstream, in those times the images associated with these ideas were new and enthralling.
In the middle of the US and Russian nuclear stand-off, the mural shows Hackney as a nuclear free zone (which it had declared itself to be by this time). The Navarino Mansions can be seen in the background and CND, trade union and church peace banners are paraded. In the centre a huge imposing double-headed rat/shark figure is seen grasping broken nuclear weapons, biting the British pound, smoking a cigar and bedecked in money chains and the dollar sign, all linking the arms race with materialism. Uncle Sam is also in evidence, walking along on stilts in the background, along with other symbols such as a dove and the figure of hooded death. A coal miner is there as part of the band, a British Rail worker is there, Ghandi is there, and Mandela is there. And the familiar slogans are there too: ‘Unite for Peace’; ‘Jobs not Bombs’; ‘No More Hiroshimas’.
However, this is not a fantasy scene, dreamed up with no context; this is a portrayal of the floats, music bands and parade of the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival. As such, its focus is on the very real threats to peace at that time, but also on a very real community’s celebration of peace.
Amongst the throng are the faces of the artists. Ray Walker is there, on the left framed by ribbons, and Anna Walker, Ray’s wife, is there in the bottom right corner. Tragically – at the age of 39 – Ray died before work on the actual painting began. Ray had battled with bureaucrats to get permission to start work on the wall and using his detailed sketches of the Peace Carnival, he came up with an overall idea and plan. The mural, mainly painted by Mike Jones, a friend of Ray’s and a mural painter himself, and with Anna’s assistance, is derived from the final large sketch that Ray produced. Mike travelled to Germany to purchase the permanent silicate-based paint, which was specially created to last the life of the wall itself. Ray was also one of the collaborating artists who painted the anti-fascist Battle of Cable Street mural and the themes of the Dalston piece appealled to him greatly as his concerns with social issues were passionately felt. The style of the work echoes trade union marches and is influenced by Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera: a rich mix of realism and social vision which can also be seen in the Cable Street mural.
The mural was funded by the GLC and Hackney Council. Specifically, it was Tony Banks MP (Chairman of the GLC at the time) who gave the go ahead to the work. He managed to allocate funding for this and two other public art murals in London to mark the GLC’s ‘Peace Year’ in 1983. He was there at the opening ceremony along with the then Mayor of Hackney, Dorice (Betty) Shanks.
Nowadays, the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural can be seen as a double memorial. It is a memorial to the talent and sheer hard graft and persistence of Ray Walker. As such, it is a deeply personal piece of public art. But it also remembers the vivid community it portrays: the people of 1983 who took to the streets to demand peace in a troubled time. It is a true memorial.

With thanks to Anna Walker, Mike Jones and Ron Foley.

A Tale of Town Halls

Gareth Carey — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:17:31 +0000

Walking up Mare Street recently, this particular E8 resident was struck by the dramatic sight of an enormous crane stretching up and out of the back of the Town Hall. It seems work on the new extension is getting on apace down at ‘Hackney Towers’. With these current building developments and a bookmaker now fully installed at Hackney Old Town Hall, perhaps this is a suitable moment to consider the history of the Borough’s buildings of power.
The first Town Hall ‘ today’s ‘Old Town Hall’ at the bottom of the Narroway ‘ was built in 1802. It replaced the Church House, also known as Urswick’s House after its builder, the Rector Christopher Urswick. The Church House was built in 1520 and was an irregular brick building which provided rooms for the parish vestry and other groups to meet for a variety of affairs. It also housed a charity school and a secure lock-up for criminals, with a nearby ‘cage’ (a wooden prison cell) and a whipping post for public humiliation of miscreants. It remained a viable and sturdy building for almost 300 years, finally succumbing to the effect of the ages in 1797. One year later, St. Augustine’s Church ‘ its immediate neighbour ‘ was also demolished, although its tower was saved.
The Old Town Hall was a straightforward two-storeyed block of four bays when it was erected in 1802. Again, it had many uses: as a savings bank in 1818; as the civil registry of births, deaths and marriages by 1837; and as the 19th-century home to the parish fire engine. It took on a more elaborate, baroque appearance by 1900 with the addition of a pediment, balustrades, an embellished doorway ‘ and the fin de siÃ¨cle equivalent of stone cladding. The earlier state of the block can still be appreciated by walking around to the back of the building: the cladding only covered the front and sides.
However, Hackney had been changing – and remarkably quickly. By the time of the Metropolis Management Act of 1855 more office and committee space was required to provide and monitor public buildings, sanitation and roads. One plan was to use the remaining St. Augustine’s Tower as the centrepiece to a vast Gothic municipal building, but this flight of Victorian fancy, perhaps thankfully, never took off. A new, larger site was needed and so came the move away from the centre of ancient Hackney Village and up to Mare Street.
The new Hackney Town Hall was built by 1866 and was a splendid, ornate edifice. Built on an open green called The Grove by Hammack and Lambert, it was in the ‘French-Italian’ style, faced with Portland stone, balustraded, amply supplied with windows, and it boasted its very own Doric porch. As is the case with many such municipal endeavours, the estimated building costs were greatly exceeded.
It became a symbol of the area’s rapid transition from rural to urban and provided a setting for Hackney’s political power and status. Road widenings, a variety of grand public housing schemes, the Carnegie Library (now the Ocean) and the coming of the Hackney Empire all combined to re-establish the centre of power away from the old Hackney Brook area. When Stoke Newington achieved separate status towards the end of the century, the symbolism of the impressive building was even more firmly embedded. The London Government Act of 1899 saw the passing of the vestry and trustee system of power and the beginnings of Hackney Council. The Borough now had councillors, a mayor and a fabulous Town Hall in which they could meet. Back at the Old Town Hall on the Narroway the loss of political power did not mean that the building lay unused. It had been occupied by the London City & Midland Bank, later the Midland Bank, and most recently the HSBC.
The the new Town Hall on Hackney Grove lasted for only 70 years. Although it looked like a mini-Versailles Palace externally, inside it was less than accommodating – more space was needed. By the time the late-1920s rolled around the design of the ‘new’ Town Hall was also being perceived as dated, indeed old-fashioned. Another ‘new’ Town Hall was built between 1934 and 1936. The old ‘new’ Town Hall was taken down and its site became the open space fronting the 1930s building.
The new building was designed by Lanchester and Lodge and has a flat roof, is square planned and shows other typical features of the Art Deco style in its external low walls, lamp piers and bronze lanterns. There are some fine examples of the Art Deco internally also, with recent refurbishments making the most of natural light and detailing on staircases and fittings. Although sometimes described as ‘austere’, the building is not ‘showy’, but rather conventional. The trees and shrubs in the front open area are a welcome sight on busy Mare Street and seem to refer back to the lost rurality of old Hackney Grove.

With thanks to Hackney Archives

A year’s worth of history

Gareth Carey — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:01 +0000

So have you been reading closely? Over the past year, EASTeight magazine has featured many of the historical buildings, areas and landmarks to be found (or, until until recently, were found) in and around E8. Now it’s time to try this perpetueight quiz – find out what you know about some of the fascinating history of your local area.

1. Which building was raided during World War II due to allegations of involvement in a Nazi spy ring?
2. Performing elephants were regulars at which 19th century venue?
3. Where would you find a nautical weather vane?
4. Which E8 survivor began as a Victorian ‘flat pack’?
5. What was described by Hackney Mayor Herbert Morrison as “the greatest cinema in the British Empire if not the world”?
6. Where does James Hoyle and Son still produce architectural ironwork?
7. Where are there numerous fine examples of Grade II listed dwellings?
8. On which building can be seen a unique barometer?
9. The basement of which building was originally designed as a shelter from World War I Zeppelin raids?
10. Where does a modern cycle path still follow an ancient drovers’ route?
11. Which organisation offers perambulatory guides?
12. Which church, now almost disappeared, did Samuel Pepys visit in 1667?

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Answers

Gareth Carey — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:01:44 +0000

Answers:
1. the German Hospital
2. the North London Colosseum and Amphitheatre
3. Haggerston Pool
4. the Iron Church, Shrubland Road
5. the Dalston Picture Theatre
6. the Beehive Foundry
7. Albion Square
8. St. Mark’s Church
9. the Classic (now Rio) Cinema
10. London Fields
11. Hackney Walks
12. St. Augustine’s Church