The Great British Bathing Revival
It’s a Sunday morning, 8am, and I’m squinting into a dark black abyss in the middle of a Hackney Wick building site. And yet, I am filled with pure joy: this abyss is the ashy guts of a sauna stove. I’m opening the shift at the Hackney Wick Sauna Baths. I’ve got two hours to […]
Mash-Up to Mainstream
Nightlife tends to eat itself, uplifting crumbling areas before getting ousted as the neighbourhood becomes desireable. Can the Wick be different?
Guest Editor: Nathaneal Williams
In recent times it’s been easy to imagine the end of the world, but it’s remained almost impossible to imagine the end of music. And it turns out the way that most people like to eat, drink, dance or even sit to music, is together – at night. Food, drink, music, film, dance, fashion, art, […]
MEUS turn White Post Lane Orange
In early 2021, just as the world was opening up again, a good friend of mine Kevin – who owns A Balanced Life here on White Post Lane – told me they were building a third layer to his plot, and I liked the look of it. I knew that I wanted to be in […]
Think in Ink
I have a few tattoos. They were scrawled onto me in different parts of the world, usually while drunk and without much emotional meaning – or tactical skill. Certainly nothing compared to the art that followers of the new tattoo renaissance display on their bodies. So I’m keen to meet the tattooists of Hackney Wick […]
A Feast for the Senses
Marshmallow Laser Feast – a.k.a visual artists Barney Steel, Robin McNicholas & Ersinhan Ersin – immerse audiences in their wild creative world. We spoke to Barney to find out more
The Wicked One: Gordon Fryer
How long have you lived here? I was born in Woodford Green and went to school there. Then I joined the Navy for 10 years, came back and got married, and my first wife was from Hackney so we ended up here. We’ve moved around a couple of times, not away from the area, but […]
Pent Up Anger
Artist Aida Wilde is angry. She asked for local legend Edwin’s iconic slogan, ‘SHITHOUSE TO PENTHOUSE’ – an artwork curated by her – to be removed from the newly refurbished Lord Napier pub. She didn’t want the incoming landlords to financially benefit from Edwin’s cheeky provocation. Aida rightly asks, “I caused Hackney Wick to become […]
Meet Stephanie Galea
The enforced confinement of lockdown saw many strangely beautiful adaptations to the challenging circumstances. Photographer and fine artist Stephanie Galea produced the scorching images shown here for Vogue Arabia and Harpers Bazaar Arabia with the judicious placement of floaty backdrops and some planters up on the roof of her local residential block. “The weather was […]
The Wicked One: Martin Richman
How did you come to HWFI? We found the place I live at now when it was still a working factory. Around 2002 a developer had bought the site, he’s showing us round and I think ‘I would love to live here’. I got together with a few friends and we bought the whole back […]
