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Welcome to The Wick

The purpose of The Wick is simple: to celebrate the creativity, the industry and the people who make this place special. From vibrant, world-class – sometimes subversive – art and culture, to new opportunities for local residents in education, training and employment, the area’s rich heritage of enterprise and innovation continues to this day. The Wick is a platform for discovering the brilliant work going on all around us, and a place for you to showcase your own successes, too.

From 2011-2013 there were three annual editions of a previous incarnation of The Wick newspaper, published by Daren Ellis at See Studio, and funded by a grant from the LLDC’s Emerging East fund. The title sought to highlight some of the issues likely to result in the demise of Hackney Wick & Fish Island as a thriving grassroots creative economy. Today, the area faces fresh challenges, from the far-reaching effects of the Covid crisis to the pace of change in the built environment all around us. So we’ve brought back The Wick for a new era, supported this time by Foundation for Future London’s People and Places fund.

Our aim is to grow from here and become a sustainable community resource over time, publishing monthly in print and regularly throughout the week online. The varied editorial output will always serve to bring the neighbourhoods around the Olympic Park together via shared, engaging storytelling. Meanwhile, the many improvements to the local environment and public spaces, and today’s better health and wellbeing opportunities must broaden everyone’s horizons equally. The Wick will present these developments as the inclusive, collaborative projects they need to be, in order to truly succeed.

Vitally, this publication needs to be guided by the local community. It will be written, illustrated and produced by the people of Hackney Wick and surrounds. Monthly editorial meetings will be open to everyone and free to attend, taking place at the end of all Cultural Interest Group (CIG) meetings, (see side panel for details).

In this period of Covid-19 it’s important that we support each other. We know that many people and businesses are struggling, and some have tragically lost their lives. We hope that as it grows, The Wick will be able to help in some way, pointing towards a better future for all.