‘The new Shoreditch’?
What’s going on in the Wick? It’s complicated… But fortunately walking artist and writer Hackney Tours has spent more than a decade here on a deep dive into the alternative subculture that makes (made?) Hackney Wick so special. If you like East Berlin, if you like street art and warehouse culture you’ll love this. But just like there, big money is eating up a lot of the good stuff.
On this (all outdoor, distanced) walking conversation you’ll be encouraged to get involved as we collectively try to work out what’s happening in the Wick? BOOK HERE
I’ve been to the community meetings in the Creative Enterprise Zone, I’ve been involved in local activism and I work with arts & culture spaces here and elders associations in the broader community. You’ll get a different angle and I use prisms such as Situationism, Culturejamming and Psychogeography to deconstruct this rapidly changing and complex landscape. We’ll even get into some globalisation issues too.
Is it an ‘antitour’? Who knows? Is it playful and inquisitive? It is! Will it be all the richer for you bringing your sense of wonder to the streets with me? Definitely. Bring your Blake, bring your Benjamin, bring your Berlin Together we’ll go walking in the Wick.
Is this the ‘new Shoreditch’? What does that actually mean? Take a guided walk around the former Victorian factory town Hackney Wick – recently home to 1,000+ artist spaces – to the edge of the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park and London’s newest neighbourhoods.
Explore this hidden corner of the capital and uncover some of its secret stories. Unpick centuries of East London history right next to the biggest regeneration project in Europe, in an area changing by the week.
(This is a lighter version of the tour for universities such as LSE, Goldsmiths, Westminster, Alexander von Humboldt and more. Hackney Tours started as a reaction to the 2012 Olympics and the ongoing changes that invite us to ask ourselves what kind of cities we want and who they’re for?)
Flashback time:
Hear about the industrial firsts and revolutionaries of the past; the artists of the present and the post-Olympic future. See exterior views of the West Ham (formerly Olympic) Stadium and fnd out how this area’s future is linked to the new tech sector future in 21st Century East London.
Take a blast through London’s past and see its future (as featured in our tour for the BBC, Guardian, France 24 etc). Hackney Wick is changing fast. BOOK HERE
Hackney Tours: East LDN Creative Exploration 