The idea for We Don’t Know What This Is came from a rather unexpected source. In early 2023, Hackney-based designer David Johnston came down with the flu.
Relegated by his wife to the back room, David tossed and turned, suffering long, delirious nights. It was during one of these nights that restless David had a fever dream.
“I saw people gathering at this very spot, watching the sun rise”, David tells East End Review. “There’s a tree that [will go] white the next month or so, and it was in front of that white tree, my dream. It was phenomenal”.
While David recovered from the bout after a week, that lucid vision still played on his mind. He mentioned it to a friend and the reaction he received stirred a new conviction.
“[My friend] said it was no dream; that instead, it was a premonition”, he added. “I was like, ‘What do you mean? How do I make it happen?’ And he said, ‘Well, let's go have a look at the space and see what it's all about’”.
The conversation took place on 2 March. Just 18 days later, a group of like-minded friends and acquaintances gathered in the morning mist shrouding the Hackney Marshes, where they watched the sun slowly leak flaming oranges and pinks into the sky, quietly celebrating the arrival of spring and breathing in the daily morning chorus. David’s lucid visions had been brought to life.
Three years on, the gathering has ballooned into a highly-anticipated regular event, attracting hundreds of people from across the East End and beyond each season.
Christened We Don’t Know What This Is by a participant, the name encapsulates “an invitation for anyone to take from it what they need”. With a vegan breakfast, a morning choir and meditative singing bowls, there are plenty of different ways to experience the offbeat ritual.
At 5.30am, a crowd begins their descent onto the marshes. It’s a mixed bunch: parents with kids ready for school; dog-walkers following their excited quarry; singers and dancers dressed in colourful robes and wearing ivy crowns; yogis with mats in hand; city workers, suited and booted for their day at the office.
Their long shadows cut through the morning mist, footsteps and paw prints crunching through the frost. The occasional Lime bike slices through the quiet, a fleeting reminder of the bustling city just beyond the marshes’ boundaries.
For David, who arrives by bike with his daughter and carries a large homemade flag, this contrast of ancient and modern, city and nature, is all part of the pull.
“You can just about hear the traffic with this, which I think a lot of people don't even realise is there”, he tells us. “But when you stand here, you don't think you're in London. I think there's something very beautiful about that.
“In these moments that we're apparently more connected, but more apart than ever, when you come and see this, it’s like leaving behind the chaos of the everyday”.
Now the unlikely admin of a 900-strong WhatsApp chat and an Instagram account with a four-figure following, David devotes his free time to encouraging participation in the sunrise ritual. Each equinox or solstice represents something different from the last, and his design background embraces the subtle changes, creating posters based on latitudinal lines and time zones that he sticks up and down the borough.
He oversees the messages on the group chat, encouraging and announcing contributors to bring something new to each event - all free of charge, as he strictly patrols against any commercialisation that he feels would warp the sanctity of the mission.
It’s a move which has been widely appreciated by the growing community of attendees, including Bones Tan Jones, who is a member of the Anglesey Druid Order.
“It’s really nice, bringing in a new season with friends”, he adds. “My favourite thing is that everyone is here simply to honour the sun and honour this turning of time. It’s coming back to our Pagan, Druidy roots, and it feels like folks connecting to the inner compass of the world without any dogma”.
For friends Annie and Georgie, up early before their working days, the gatherings are a chance to celebrate the passage of time with a like-minded community.
“It feels like the right kind of thing to be doing. We would celebrate this ourselves anyway, so it’s just amazing that people have come together, and everyone's brought their own items, developed it, whilst making it their own”.
Friday, 20 March, 2026, 6.03am. The birds living on the marshes sing the new day into existence with fervour, as they have done from time immemorial. A crowd of about two hundred face towards the city and the sun, which has been creeping into the sky for the past forty minutes. Now, its fiery hues are fully unleashed into the open heavens, providing a striking backdrop to the city ahead. It’s a clear day, with strategically-placed clouds adding to the celestial drama.
Groups of dancers slowly begin to move in pockets among the swaying crowd. A soundscape artist picks up the quiet hums and conversations amid the sound baths and melodic singing. A queue forms behind the table serving tea and breakfast, where dogs hover for any unattended scraps. The yoga class roll out their mats and begin their stretches. The sky shifts from vibrant pink to a cooler purple, and finally a pale blue. The new day is here, and with it, spring has arrived.
We Don’t Know What This Is will be hosting an exhibition of images and stories from the gatherings, opening on 2 May at Homerton Library.
