East End Review

Category: NEWS

  • ‘Hackney boy’ Asif Kapadia nominated for Oscar for Amy Winehouse documentary

    ‘Hackney boy’ Asif Kapadia nominated for Oscar for Amy Winehouse documentary

    Amy Winehouse. Photograph: Alex Lake
    Amy Winehouse. Photograph: Alex Lake

    Hackney-born film director Asif Kapadia has been nominated for an Oscar for his documentary about the life and career of Amy Winehouse.

    Amy was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category, and will go up against What Happened Miss Simone? as well as non-music related documentaries The Look of Silence, Cartel Land and Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.

    Amy is the highest grossing British documentary of all time, surpassing Senna, Kapadia’s 2010 documentary about the Brazilian Formula One driver.

    Speaking to the Hackney Citizen and East End Review, Kapadia said he was sorting out his tax receipts when the announcement was made yesterday.

    “It’s been winning quite a few prizes, but I’m very superstitious and you don’t want to get carried away so I was trying not to think about it. Luckily our film starts with the letter ‘A’ so it was the first one up.”

    Despite critical acclaim and box office success, Senna was overlooked on the Oscar shortlist for 2012, making the nomination for Amy all the sweeter.

    “Our aim was to show people the real girl, the real Amy – and in that way I think we succeeded,” said Kapadia.

    “At least now people have more compassion and love for her now than maybe before. I think she became a bit of a tabloid persona, tabloid character, when actually she’s high art, she’s a real natural phenomenon and someone for London to be really proud of.

    “Hopefully if this happens again and someone else has what appears to be a public breakdown we’ll show a bit more love and compassion and not attack them.”

    After wins last year for Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida) and James Lucas (The Phone Call), Kapadia is happy to be flying the flag for Hackney at this year’s Oscar ceremony, as fellow East Londoner Idris Elba lost out for his role in Beasts of no Nation.

    “I’m a Hackney boy born and bred,” he said. “I was born in Mother’s Hopsital which is no longer there, I went to Tyssen Primary school and I went to Homerton House secondary school.

    “We lived in Stokey and we lived in Stamford Hill and although I don’t live in Hackney right now you can’t take Hackney out of the man. It definitely gave me the strength to survive.”

    Asif-Kapadia receiving an honorary doctorate at the University of East London in 2011
    Asif-Kapadia receiving an honorary doctorate at the University of East London in 2012

    The Oscars have once again come under fire for a lack of racial diversity, with Kapadia enjoying the dubious distinction of being one the few non-white nominees.

    “I guess all you can do is be there and represent your side and hopefully other people will get the opportunity and come through,” he said.

    “I’m just happy to be there as one of the Londoners. I’m just going to go there with our film and not worry too much about that other stuff.”

    The 2016 Oscar winners will be announced on 28 February at a ceremony at the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood.

  • Hackney Colliery Band releases ‘Heroes’ as East London mourns Bowie

    Ska: The Hackney Colliery Band
    Brass tribute: The Hackney Colliery Band

    A ska version of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, performed by brass ensemble the Hackney Colliery Band, has been released as a tribute to the music icon, who died on Sunday aged 69.

    The upbeat recording is free to download, with the band encouraging donations to Cancer Research UK or Macmillan Cancer Support in lieu of payment.

    The band were already planning to release the recording this week to coincide with that of Blackstar, Bowie’s 29th and final album, which came out last Friday.

    Trumpet player Steve Pretty admits he was initially worried about releasing an upbeat rendition of ‘Heroes’ at a time of grief, but says the reaction so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

    “I was a little worried it would feel inappropriate, but people have been saying that it’s cheered them up, people who are real Bowie fans. I think if it was morose it wouldn’t add much. It’s more a celebration than a commemoration I suppose.”

    For Pretty, the most inspirational thing about David Bowie was his “creative restlessness”.

    “I was sad to hear of his death but he didn’t define my youth,” he said.

    “At the same time the thing I really admire about him as a creative force is that restlessness and the fact he was able to be so incredibly popular but at the same time do things on his own terms.

    “That restless energy and lack of cynicism is really refreshing. Being able to keep control in an industry that is not always a nice place to operate, to stay popular, relevant and by all accounts a nice guy, is an amazing achievement.”

    As part of a nationwide outpouring of grief, East London residents have been finding ways to pay tribute to the man who gave us Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke.

    Newly-opened bar Machine No 3 on Well Street is hosting a David Bowie Tribute Party tomorrow evening, with prizes for the best costume, face-paint and t-shirts, while pupils at Queensbridge primary school in Haggerston sang a rousing rendition of ‘Starman’ at a memorial assembly yesterday.

    Download ‘Heroes’ here: https://hackneycollieryband.bandcamp.com/track/heroes

    Machine No 3 tribute bash: https://www.facebook.com/events/568052196692714/

  • Students occupy gallery over plans to sell-off Cass art school

    An Cass occupation – Barbara Ntumey 620
    An occupier registers disapproval at plans to relocate the Cass. Photograph: Barbara Ntumy

    Opposition against a £50 million sell-off and relocation of the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design has gathered pace, with students occupying a gallery on Wednesday evening.

    The students have moved into the Bank Gallery space on Whitechapel High Street to protest against London Metropolitan University’s plans to merge its departments into one campus on Holloway Road by September 2017.

    The plans, approved in October, would see The Cass’s current home in Aldgate and the rest of London Met’s East London estate sold off, with the proceeds used to revamp the Holloway campus.

    The occupation was sparked by the suspension of Robert Mull as Dean of Faculty, believed to be the result of Mull’s refusal to support the university’s ‘One Campus, One Community’ policy.

    A group called Occupy the Cass has issued a list of demands, which include not selling the Cass’s Central House building on Whitechapel High Street, and a commitment not to cut courses, staff numbers and student places.

    Courses in jewellery, silversmithing and the last musical instrument making BSc in the UK are being phased out at the Cass as part of the university’s ‘annual portfolio review’ but which the occupying students see as evidence of an “asset stripping exercise to balance the university’s books”.

    The group’s actions have been endorsed by the likes of artists Jeremy Deller, a visiting professor at the school, and Bob and Roberta Smith, an associate professor and course leader there. The latter described the occupiers as “wonderful people” who are “standing up for the Cass [and for] art education at all levels.”

    However, a statement released by London Metropolitan University said it is investing £125m in new workshops and studio spaces to create a new home for The Cass at the Holloway campus.

    “We appreciate that some students are concerned about the move, but we’d like to reassure them that the Cass is not closing, nor will its making ethos or successful studio model of teaching be lost,” the statement read.

    “By moving to Islington, the Cass will be in one location as opposed to the faculty’s current split between Central House and Commercial Road. Students have already highlighted the success of the previous merger between the School of Architecture and School of Art and Design to form the Cass three years ago, and we believe another move, with considerably more investment, can only be positive.

    “We are inviting students to work with us to shape the Cass’s future together, and we’d urge those occupying today to accept that offer.”

    The occupation is the latest measure in an increasingly high-profile campaign to ‘save the Cass’. A petition opposing the one campus plan has more than 2000 signatories, and last week the school’s proposed move away from East London was mentioned during a debate in the House of Lords. Bob and Roberta Smith has created a new artwork protesting the move, an open letter to chancellor George Osbourne penned on convector heaters, which is on display at William Morris Gallery.

    Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs has described himself as “deeply shocked” at the decision to move the Cass, whose alumni include members of the newly-crowned Turner Prize winning collective, Assemble.

  • East London collective Assemble become first ‘non-artists’ to win the Turner Prize

    An indoor garden with roof. Part of Granby Four Streets by Assemble
    An indoor garden with roof. Part of Granby Four Streets by Assemble

    A group of architects based in East London has won the Turner Prize for a project that transformed a street of neglected terraced houses in Liverpool.

    Assemble, a group of 18 architects and designers, collected the prize last night at a ceremony at the Tramway arts venue in Glasgow.

    The group won the prize for its Granby Four Streets project, in which it spectacularly restored a cluster of terraced houses in Toxteth, Liverpool, that had been purchased by the local council after the 1981 Toxteth Riots and been allowed to fall into disrepair.

    Working alongside residents, Assemble refurbished the houses in a way that celebrated the area’s architectural and cultural heritage, creating an indoor garden and establishing a monthly market.

    It has also established the Granby Workshop, a social enterprise that trains and employs local people to manufacture and sell a range of handmade products, the like of which were used to refurbish the houses.

    These items, which were on display in a showroom at the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tramway in Glasgow,  are very unlike most of what appears in mainstream homeware shops.

    The rich textures and colours of the pieces bespeak the relatively simple processes through which they have been created from raw materials. wall tiles reminiscent of Kandinsky, elegant mantlepieces formed of recycled rubble, one-off ceramic doorknobs, and pressed terracotta lampshades.

    Granby Four Streets Axonometric View
    Granby Four Streets Axonometric View

    Accepting the prize from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Assemble member Joseph Halligan said: “I think it’s safe to say this nomination was a surprise to us all. The last six months have been a super surreal experience but it has been an opportunity to start something which we really hope will be with us for a very very long time.”

    During its 31-year history the Turner Prize has questioned traditional boundaries of what may be considered art, with Tracey Emin’s My Bed from 1998 a particularly notorious example.

    Assemble’s entry is no less bold, as it blurs boundaries between art and architecture and has an explicit social purpose. It is also the first Turner Prize-winning entry that people actually live in.

    Hazel Tilley, a resident on Cairns Street who was involved with the project, talked of how a sense of pride had been restored to the community thanks to Assemble.

    She told Channel 4: “They brought art into everyday living and everyone has a right to that, because otherwise art just belongs to rich people who live in posh houses and it should belong to everybody – real art is accessible.

    “It’s a story of humanity, and if art isn’t about humanity I don’t know what it’s about.”

    Assemble is the first collective to win the Turner Prize.

    The group was selected ahead of artists Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbel and Nicole Wermers for the £25,000 prize, which is awarded annually by Tate to a British artist under 50.

  • Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot tackles refugee crisis at Stoke Newington gallery opening

    Nadya Tolokonnikova at the opening of So it Goes at Stoke Newington's Hang Up Gallery. Photograph: Russell Parton
    Nadya Tolokonnikova at the opening of So it Goes at Stoke Newington’s Hang Up Gallery. Photograph: Russell Parton

    “We have a new challenge and a new injustice to fight,” declared Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, standing on a box to address a tightly packed crowd at Hang-Up Gallery in Stoke Newington yesterday evening.

    The Russian punk singer and activist flew over from Moscow to premiere the video of ‘Refugees In’, the new Pussy Riot single, at the opening of the Connor Brothers’ exhibition So it Goes at Hang-Up’s new gallery space on Stoke Newington High Street.

    The Connor Brothers, London artists Mike Snelle and James Golding, got to know Pussy Riot following a lecture delivered by Tolokonnikova at Cambridge University last year, and collaborated with the band by producing their concert at the closing of Banksy’s Dismaland in September.

    Now they have started an NGO with the band to tackle the refugee crisis, and part of the exhibition details the artists’ experiences in ‘The Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais.

    A swarm of art buyers, artists and the odd celebrity spotter filled the gallery space, discussing the art works and quaffing flutes of Prosecco whilst waiting for the main event of the evening.

    Gallery goers at So it Goes
    Gallery goers at the So it Goes opening. Photograph: Russell Parton

    Aired towards the end of the evening, the video showed members Pussy Riot members caged and masked whilst a battle ensued between protesters and riot police.

    In a speech before the screening, Tolokonnikova, who went on hunger strike in a Russian prison whilst serving a two-year sentence for performing a ‘punk prayer’ inside Moscow’s cathedral, called the refugee crisis “the defining issue of our generation”, and quoted Gandhi, saying: “Whatever you do [in life] will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

    Apologising for having to read from a piece of paper, Tolokonnikova added: “This crisis is not something to be afraid of, it’s an opportunity to remind ourselves what humanity is capable of.”

    “Innocent people are fleeing war, hunger and persecution by brutal dictatorships.

    “They have undertaken epic and life-threatening journeys from their home countries in the hope of finding refuge and safety.

    “We cannot and must not turn our backs on them, we cannot allow our elected representatives to place a monetary value on human lives. It is our ethics and not our economics that must be our guiding principle.”

    After visiting Calais in August and witnessing the living conditions of refugees, the Connor Brothers subsequently sold an edition of prints in collaboration with Hang-Up to raise money to provide aid.

    The artists now plan to sell a third limited edition charity print this month to raise further funds to build additional shelters when they return to The Jungle with Pussy Riot in December.

    So it Goes is at Hang-Up Gallery, 81 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 8AD until 6 December
    hanguppictures.com

    Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by The Connor Brothers
    ‘Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself’ by The Connor Brothers

     

  • London Sex Worker Film Festival seeks to challenge ‘whorephobic’ society

    Soy Negra
    Scene from Columbian documentary Soy Negra, Soy Marica, Soy Puta

    An on-the-job video of a peep show girl and a documentary about a transgender sex worker who takes in an abandoned young girl are among the films to be screened at the London Sex Worker Film Festival this Sunday.

    The festival, to be held at the Rio Cinema, seeks to challenge an “intensely whorephobic society” with a programme of films made mainly by current or erstwhile sex workers.

    Shorts and longer features address topics such as migration, border control, race, gender and violence.

    Highlights include the feature Red Umbrella Diaries, a 90-minute documentary telling the individual stories of seven New Yorkers who work in different sectors of of the sex trade and the Columbian documentary Soy Negra, Soy Marica, Soy Puta (I’m black, I’m gay, I’m a sex worker) that follows a sex worker and lawyer who campaigns for and represents trans people and sex workers in Colombia.

    Shorter works include the self-shot Diary of a Peep Show Girl, the award-winning Roxanne, in which a transgender sex worker’s life is thrown into question after she starts looking after an abandoned girl, and Becky’s Journey, about a Nigerian woman who attempts to go to Europe to sell sex in the hope of changing her life for the better.

    Now in its third year, the festival will be looking to mark the 30-year anniversary of the sex worker occupation in Lyon, when sex workers occupied a church for eight days to draw attention to their lack of rights in French society.

    London Sex Worker Film Festival is at Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB on Sunday 8 November.

    https://londonsexworkerfilmfest.wordpress.com/

     

     

  • To treat naked artist Poppy Jackson as a joke is to dismiss something powerful

    Performance artist Poppy Jackson. Photograph: Manuel Vason / DARC
    Performance artist Poppy Jackson. Photograph: Manuel Vason / DARC

    The artist Poppy Jackson has sparked something of a tabloid controversy around her performance Site, taking place as part of the 2015 Spill Festival of Performance.

    In the piece Jackson sat, naked, across the gable of Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel. She stayed there for four-hour stints, across two days. Jackson was just about visible from the street (if you happened to be looking up at the right moment), although in order to really see her properly the audience gathered in the Toynbee courtyard, and lined the stairs inside the building.

    On the first day, someone working in an adjacent building tweeted a photo, asking ‘What’s happening?’. Several news organisations then picked up the story, prompting a slew of sensationalist articles and the familiar below-the-line griping in the comments section.

    Spill has circulated a press release detailing Jackson’s intentions, and Lyn Gardner has since written in the Guardian about how the piece fits in to the rest of the festival and a longer history of performance art. Artists like Jackson are asking questions, in a language that most might not be used to, but they do so not to provoke needlessly.

    The city has become a prescribed place, our public and shared spaces monetised, corporatised and gated off. Jackson’s dignified sitting, against the cold and the stares, highlights to me just how boring the streets and buildings of the city have become. I’m glad she was there, and that I got to witness it. Art is not limited to oil paintings of horses.

    For me though, this is not a story about a piece of art, but about the ‘journalists’ that spend their days trawling Twitter for clickbait to bump up website traffic. ‘Can (insert newspaper here) use your picture?’ appears hundreds of times under the original tweet, a sadder indictment of current reporting than of the state of the art scene in London.

    Art, theatre and performance critics are being scrapped, whilst newspapers desperately scrape together lowest common denominator articles. Sensitivity to experimental work is lost when it’s presented in such a reductive way. Artworks that are trying something new, or that maybe require a different kind of engagement from its audience, are written off as a joke.

    Look at the two pictures that were originally tweeted, really look at them, and you can see the beauty in the image. Across the roofs and red brick walls of that corner of East London, Jackson sits quietly, dignified and statuesque. Amongst the moss, ivy and tiles her body stands out, a little fleshy intervention, a different perspective on the space. What’s happening is an art piece, a piece of art. You might not like it, you might hate it, you might think it’s funny, or you might not care. But to treat it like a joke is to dismiss something powerful.

    @LewisAChurch

  • Mayor ‘deeply shocked’ at plans to close the Cass

    Photograph: Steve Blunt
    Last May’s Arts Emergency Response exhibition at the Cass. Photograph: Steve Blunt

    More than 2,000 people have signed a petition against plans to close an art school with “deep roots” to East London.

    Last month London Metropolitan University approved plans to consolidate all teaching to its Holloway Road campus, allowing its buildings at Moorgate and Aldgate to be sold.

    The Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, on Commercial Street, described as the ‘Aldgate Bauhaus’ by artist Bob and Roberta Smith, will have to relocate to Holloway Road by September 2017.

    Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs said he was “deeply shocked” at the decision to relocate the campuses.

    “The loss of all the student places in the Aldgate area is a blow, but the decision to relocate the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design is particularly upsetting,” the Mayor said.

    “The Cass through its predecessor institutions has deep roots in the East End and has a wonderful reputation for combining academic study and creative production.”

    But Professor John Raftery, Vice Chancellor of London Met, defended the decision, saying: “We are excited about this project, which aims to create a one campus, one community university.

    “We believe this will benefit our students, who will enjoy an enhanced student experience, and our staff, who will have more opportunities to collaborate.

    A change.org petition led by Cass Faculty Officer Amanda Marillier has already attracted over 2,000 signatures.

    “The proposed closure of The Cass and Moorgate campuses represents a massive attack on students, staff and access to education,” the petition states.

    “These cuts can potentially lead to courses being ‘discontinued’, staff losing their jobs, and prospective students losing the opportunity to study as the number of student places are reduced.”

  • Cancellation of witchcraft play is ‘akin to censorship’

    Photograph: Richard Davenport
    Hannah Hutch stars in Jane Wenham: The Witch of Wenham. Photograph: Richard Davenport

    The decision to cancel a performance of a play co-produced by the Arcola has been described as “akin to censorship”.

    Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern was due to be performed at Ipswich High School for Girls on 13 October before it emerged the performance had been cancelled due to concerns about its content.

    The play, which is touring small venues outside London before a run at the Arcola in January, looks at accusations of witchcraft in 18th-century Hertfordshire from a feminist perspective.

    Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the co-writer of Oscar-winning film Ida, the play looks at what happens after a woman is blamed for a tragic death and charged with witchcraft.

    A statement by Out of Joint explained it had made the story of the cancellation public because “decisions akin to censorship should not be made easily or without consequence, and should be known about”.

    Max Stafford-Clark, Out of Joint’s Artistic Director said: “It is deeply troubling that a play which so eloquently examines witch persecutions from a feminist perspective, and looks at the way society treated and continues to treat women, is considered inappropriate for an audience of young women.

    “The school has also said that the inclusion of swearing is inappropriate, a policy which presumably rules out much contemporary drama or fiction for study. There is nothing gratuitous in the play. Theatre is the way we examine our world and our history. The school’s decision not to learn from the past seems spectacularly perverse.”

    But a spokesperson for the independent girls’ school defended the decision, saying that it had been prompted by a change of personnel at the school.

    “The new teachers in the drama department reviewed the script on their arrival at the school this September, and had grave reservations about the content and inferences,” the spokesperson said.

    “The concern about the use of swear words was secondary to the references made to child abuse which are explicitly detailed.

    “Teachers have a legal duty of care which includes being aware of the content of their work and the impact it may have on children, young people or vulnerable adults.”

    The axing of the play follows the furore surrounding Homegrown, the National Youth Theatre play about Islamic radicalisation that was pulled two weeks before it opened.

    Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern is co-produced by the Arcola Theatre, Out of Joint and Watford Palace Theatre, in association with Eastern Angles.

     

  • ‘Time has come’ for a Hitchcock museum in Leytonstone

    Hitchcock mosaic at Leytonstone tube. Photograph: Russell Parton
    Hitchcock mosaic from Rebecca at Leytonstone tube. Photograph: Russell Parton

    Momentum is gathering for a museum in Leytonstone dedicated to the life and work of one of its most famous sons, the filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

    Ros Kane, a charity founder who has lived in Leytonstone since 1974, is looking to create a steering group to secure a site for the museum, claiming the “time has come” for the filmmaker to be properly commemorated.

    Hitchcock, known as the ‘master of suspense’ for the directorial techniques he pioneered in films such as Birds and Vertigo, was born in Leytonstone in 1899, where a blue plaque marking his place of birth can be found at a petrol station on Leytonstone High Road.

    “Waltham Forrest has got William Morris and Hitchcock, these two famous people. We managed to save the William Morris gallery and this is the second thing we need to do,” said Kane.

    “There are murals underground, but this is a poor area – or has been – and could do with a bit of building up.”

    Kane has already identified a potential site, a large office with a basement close to Hitchcock’s place of birth, and is looking for support from residents to get the campaign going.

    “I met a woman who moved to south Leytonstone because of Hitchcock and was then appalled to find that there was no museum,” Kane said.

    “It would put Leytonstone on the map and considering Hitchcock is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time it’s just so obvious that it needs to be done.”

    If you would like to be part of the steering group for a Hitchcock museum in Leytonstone (wherever you live), email roskane@btinternet.com

    Hiccock
    Son of a grocer: Mosaic showing Alfred Hitchcock’s father’s shop. Photograph: Russell Parton