East End Review

Tag: Oliver Zarandi

  • Swimming with Diana Dors – book review

    Author Jeremy Worman
    Author Jeremy Worman

    This somewhat enigmatically entitled collection of short stories by Jeremy Worman follows the Hackney-based author’s debut collection Fragmented in 2011. 

    The stories are divided into two sections, ‘Places’ and ‘London’, with some set in far flung destinations such as Russia, as well as in Surrey and East London. ‘Christmas Games’, an insight into a mother and son relationship, demonstrates the clarity of Worman’s prose style. But the story is punctuated by disturbing moments, such as when the son plays with Scalextric and dreams of crashing his mother’s new ‘friend’ on “the worst corner at Silverstone”. Then, after he feels his thigh being squeezed, he reveals: “I got an erection.” 

    These characters return in ‘After Father’s Funeral’. The mother and son are now at the father’s funeral.These are characters that “need love”. Worman’s descriptions often seem superfluous in other stories – “gloomy” rooms, voices “like grenades” – but here he writes with a sobriety that illuminates the character’s state of mind. 

    The image of the father’s coffin, as it “moved easily into the flames” is followed by the downing of a pint. The movement of the coffin and the act of drinking show a flushing out of memory, a sort of anaesthetised look at life. 

    ‘Old and New’ takes place on the 38 bus route, along Balls Pond Road. As vivid a picture as Worman paints of the area, the story struggles to delve deeper than surface description, and some of the dialogue falls flat, such as the old woman’s cry of “young-uns!” and a nurse’s exclamation that there is “no racism in me”. It feels too obvious and lacking in anything particularly new. 

    The collection works better in stories such as ‘Stairs at 29 Mehetabel Road’ or ‘Harry Slocombe’s East End Return’ with the former a touching exploration of place and history as layers of paint are stripped off an 1863 Hackney terraced house with hidden histories revealing themselves from underneath the paint. 

    Despite the variable quality of the stories, it is excellent writing overall. One only wishes Worman had narrowed his focus on London as when he does the collection really comes alive. 

    Swimming with Diana Dors & Other Stories is published by Cinnamon Press. RRP: £9.99. ISBN: 9781909077225

  • Bow Traveller children photograph their community in face of Crossrail development

    Traveller children. Photograph: Malita O'Donoghue
    Traveller children make their point. Photograph: Malita O’Donoghue

    In 2012, Crossrail announced plans to build their new railway and shaft through a 32-year-old gypsy and traveller site on Eleanor Street in Bow.

    In a petition to Parliament, the gypsy and traveller community state the move is “stressful” for the elderly, and that they face an “uncertain future for their children”.

    These children have now visualised their experiences as part of Cranes, Trains, Plots and Shots, a youth-led photography project which started in June 2013 and culminates this month with an exhibition at Rich Mix.

    The project was open to children aged four to 13, and is a moving document detailing the change in their environment and home life. Old and young, the travellers feel the weight of Crossrail. Elis is a seven year-old who took part in the project. “It’s upsetting because we have to leave our home and I don’t want to leave people behind,” he says.

    The exhibition aims to break down the ‘negative stereotypes’ that exist towards this community. Despite their unique situation, what is clear from the photographs is that the children are like any other children in London, having fun with their friends and making the best of their circumstances.

    “We have been taking photos of what we like, our friends, our home, our dogs to show other people,” explains Elis. Asked if taking the photographs were important, Elis replies: “It is very important because photos are on the news. With photos you can show people things, you can show people where you are.”

    Perhaps without them realising, these childrens’ work is an empowering depiction of the community’s hopeful future.

    The Crossrail project may have fractured and displaced the gypsies and travellers, but these photographs are proof children can articulate their thoughts positively, which in turn can only keep their community together and make them stronger.

    Cranes, Trains, Plots & Shots is at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA until 12 July

  • East Londoners on tour

    East Londoners on tour: Harvey Gould takes filmmakers Phil Maxwell and for a trip around Soho. Photograph: Phil Maxwell
    Harvey Gould in Soho. Photograph: Phil Maxwell

    East London filmmaking duo Phil Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim’s latest documentary, to be screened at the East End Film Festival this month, started in the Pride of Spitalfields pub. A friend put them in touch with somebody in Soho, a ‘real character’. One minute they were in the pub, the next, as Hashim puts it, they “were out in Soho interviewing a man called Harvey Gould”. Their documentary takes Maxwell and Hashim away from East London and into the heart of Soho. “It was a challenge because we were out of our comfort zone,” said Hashim. Thankfully they were with a “proper Soho native”. Gould, born in 1927, who grew up in Wardour House, “wants his story out there”. Maxwell adds: “He has an extraordinary memory and really remembers how the place has changed over the years.” Gould took Maxwell and Hashim on a personal tour of his London, weaving his narrative and memory with beautiful shots of Soho. Gould tells how, after the war, he used to run lemonade to Trafalgar Square to sell to the GIs. Hashim and Maxwell also got access to an old prostitute parlour overlooking Berwick Street market, “which still had the red light outside”. Maxwell and Hashim point out that plenty of films have highlighted Soho’s sex trade, but they wanted to show a different side to Soho. Maxwell says: “Harvey says the prostitutes were always very friendly. They were just an integral part of the community. Harvey accepted it. Soho is always changing. It’s a place that has always evolved to the pressures of being in central London.” Hashim adds that Gould used to paint wickets on the walls in the alley ways of Soho. “The traces are still there,” Hashim says. The documentary is not just interested in present narrative, then; it is about the traces of an older London, kept alive by one man’s memories. Hashim and Maxwell had “difficulty keeping up with Harvey”, a man who moved with the energy of a younger man. “He just really wanted to tell his story,” Hashim says, adding that Gould is now “living with cancer”. When asked if this gave the film a sense of urgency, Maxwell said yes, but was keen to point out that Gould “was really relaxed and wasn’t one of these people who felt sorry for himself. He wouldn’t let a disease curtail his enthusiasm for life”. Hashim and Maxwell’s documentary might have been “outside of their comfort zone” but they have found a lot of similarities between the areas. “East London and Soho, they’re villages,” says Maxwell. Their new documentary is a celebration of community, memory and a city that is constantly renewing itself. Harvey’s Soho will be showing at the Rio Cinema on 22 June as part of the East End Film Festival.

  • Eclectic mix of contemporary art on display at Shoreditch gallery

    Rise and Fall by Natasha Kissell
    Rise and Fall by Natasha Kissell

    East meets West at the Cock’n’Bull gallery in Shoreditch at new exhibition Eleven. In collaboration with Eleven Gallery, Belgravia, the Cock’n’Bull is displaying work by Kent Christensen, Cedric Christie, Adam Dix, Gerry Fox, Roland Hicks, Natasha Kissell, Natasha Law, Peter Newman, Jennie Ottinger and Jonathan Yeo.

    The show is an eclectic mix with artists working across a wide range of media including oil painting, gloss paint on aluminum, sculpture, video and photography.

    Many of the works on display respond in some way to the Tramshed restaurant, in which the gallery is housed. Kent Christensen’s oil painting series depicts various desserts that you might find in an East London restaurant. The playful application of paint makes for a delicious-looking canvas.

    Natasha Kissell is another artist represented. She had a great start to her career – Charles Saatchi purchased her entire Royal Academy graduation show in 2003. Her latest paintings juxtapose serene landscapes and urban dynamism. Modernist architecture – harsh edges and empty windows – are surrounded by graffiti and the delicate details of the natural world.

    Playful and mesmerizing, Gerry Fox’s After Three Girls by Schiele is a framed TV monitor of three women lying in bed while his Nudes Moving, on permanent display in the Tramshed’s washroom, provides a seductive twist on conventional photography.

     

  • Jeremy Hunter photographs to go on display at Shoreditch gallery

    Egungun at Porto Santo-Sakete village, Benin © Jeremy Hunter 2013
    Egungun at Porto Santo-Sakete village, Benin Photograph: © Jeremy Hunter 2013

    Mark Hix’s Cock’n’Bull Gallery – located in the basement of his Tramshed restaurant in the heart of Shoreditch – has partnered with Sharon Newton and will be home to Let’s Celebrate 365, an exhibition of work by photographer Jeremy Hunter.

    Spanning 35 years of Hunter’s stunning reportage photography across 65 countries and five continents, the exhibition focuses on global festivals, ceremonies, rituals and celebrations – ranging from secular to political and religious – in order to explore the world’s diversity.

    Newton has worked closely with Hunter to select images that present rituals, ceremonies and celebrations from around the world including India, Tibet, Ethiopia and Britain.

    Hunter has unflinchingly chronicled the many faces of celebration throughout the world. The photographs simultaneously capture the violence, tenderness and, as Newton says, “the most beautiful, often most vulnerable aspects of humanity”.

    His subjects range from the Aboakyer Deer Hunt in Ghana, the whipping of young women at the Ukuli Bula ceremony in Ethiopia, to the rarely witnessed hair-pulling of nuns at the Deeksha ceremony in Southern India.

    The photographs are not only an invaluable legacy from an anthropological perspective, but from a photographic and artistic one too. Hunter’s photographs are cinematic in their form, colour and framing, no doubt formed by his early career, working alongside influential British directors such as Nicholas Roeg, Ken Russell and John Schlesinger.

    Hunter’s work depicts the vulnerability of not just humanity, but of the fragility of cultures. Hunter says: “As a result of increasingly rapid globalisation and the impact of mobile-phone technology, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, much of what I have documented will most probably vanish.”

    It is interesting, then, to see Hunter’s record of these imperiled global traditions in the heart of an ever-changing East End backdrop. The venue, Newton adds, “is perfect” and is where “Hunter shot his very first photo-reportage in Shoreditch during the 1960s”.

    These heartfelt photographs may represent the last time we see these cultures, which  according to Newton are “on their way to extinction”. Let us hope not.

    Jeremy Hunter – Let’s Celebrate 365
    9 May – 12 May 2014
    Cock ‘n’ Bull Gallery
    32 Rivington Street
    EC2A 3LX

     

  • Brick Lane is remembered in photographs

    Doing the laundry: photograph of Brick Lane by Phil Maxwell
    Doing the laundry: photograph of Brick Lane by Phil Maxwell

    Since moving to London in 1981, Phil Maxwell has always lived just off Brick Lane in an 11-storey tower block. It is the perfect location for somebody who is known as the photographer of Brick Lane and its surrounding areas. “I’ve noticed how the London skyline changes over the years,” Maxwell says.

    These changes are documented in Maxwell’s new book Brick Lane by Spitalfields Life Books, an intimate collection of photographs dating back to 1982. The book dispenses with words to let the photographs speak for themselves.

    His passion for documenting the inner city began in Toxteth, Liverpool, a place that, Maxwell says, “wasn’t too dissimilar to Brick Lane”. Maxwell admits he is particularly fond of his photographs from the 1980s because the “environment was so disconnected”. Maxwell adds: “The area had lots of corrugated iron, dilapidated buildings and that somehow enabled me to focus on the people better.”

    Maxwell’s photography captures moments of humanity that are apparent in all three decades. “There’s a similarity in the faces and a common humanity which I’m interested in capturing in my work,” says Maxwell.

    However, Maxwell has been witness to a lot of change in the area since 1981. Maxwell says: “When I moved here, it was quite run down but now it is a playground for people who can frequent the bars. A lot of people have been driven out of the area. I preferred it before it became commercialised like it is now.”

    This change has not dampened Maxwell’s enthusiasm for the area. The older photographs are special, Maxwell insists, because it shows how Brick Lane used to be a meeting place for Bangladeshi families. “The houses were quite overcrowded, so people treated the street as an extension of their home. It’s like a theatre where all human life is there.”

    Asked if the area bored him, Maxwell says: “I never get bored of the area. If I walked out and took a photograph now, there’d be something new for me. It constantly surprises me.” Against a backdrop of change, Maxwell finds interest in the faces of Brick Lane and its surrounding areas.

    “It’s interesting to see the different characteristics and personalities on Brick Lane or in Whitechapel and Stepney,” Maxwell tells me. Brick Lane is a crossroads between the city and the “real east end” with people on lower incomes. His photography thrives on the hustle and bustle of the marketplaces, the interaction between people from different cultures and the faces of the people.

    When asked if his work was political, Maxwell replies: “It is insomuch that it values the lives and the tribulations of ordinary people. They came together to demonstrate against the war and the BNP and National Front in the 80s and 90s. I celebrate the people and their lives, and the difficulties they have in trying to survive.”

    Maxwell’s book is a heartfelt look at a city and, most importantly, its people. “A lot of our culture celebrates celebrity. I think it’s important to show the other side. I am full of admiration for ordinary people and I want to celebrate them in my work.”

    Maxwell’s work shows the change in our city, but also celebrates the undimmed enthusiasm of ordinary people trying to survive in London.

    Brick Lane by Phil Maxwell on at the Mezzanine gallery, Rich Mix, 35 – 47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA until 26 April.

     

     

     

     

  • Rare photographs show East End life 100 years ago

    Detail of a photograph by C.A. Mathews of Crispin Street looking towards Spitalfields Market and Dorset Street.
    Detail of a photograph by C.A. Mathews of Crispin Street looking towards Spitalfields Market and Dorset Street

    Jeremy Freedman – contemporary photographer, 10th generation Spitalfields resident and founder of the Huguenots of Spitalfields charity – uncovered a mystery at the Bishopsgate Institute.

    It was a box containing 21 photographs – badly damaged – revealing Spitalfields life a century ago. The photographs were taken by C.A. Mathew, who, Freedman says, “we know little about”. Freedman has spent the last few years restoring the photographs.

    They will be available for the public to see at Eleven Spitalfields Gallery from 7 March for the first time in over 100 years.

    These photographs are the last surviving legacy of the enigmatic Mathew. Freedman and I followed the footsteps of Mathew from Liverpool Street, down Bishopsgate and explored the streets branching off it. It is fascinating to compare the photographs to Spitalfields today.

    The details reveal a world that was alive with movement, life, death and tragedy. A photograph of Artillery Lane reveals that the Titanic had sunk four days prior; on Crispin Street are a multitude of children, faces uncertain, natural. Another photograph reveals an electric bakery and a shoeshine at work. These photographs are, as the Gentle Author writes, the “most vivid evocation we have of Spitalfields at this time”. They show an ever-changing city in movement.

    “Spitalfields has always been an area of change,” says Freedman, and “a hub of immigration”. Some photographs show areas that have been completely destroyed, paving way for the Spitalfields we know today. Frying Pan Alley, once populated with children and homes, is now Nido Spitalfields, expensive accommodation for students. Others remain almost identical, such as Middlesex Street, the buildings still intact.

    However, it is important not to politicise these photographs. “The photographs are a wonderful celebration of life,” says Freeman. “This area has always been unique because it’s about people who live here – families – most of them multigenerational. People know each other here. It’s always felt like home.’

    As we turned down Commercial Street, we passed Gardner’s, the oldest traditional family business in the area. On the front door of the shop, an East End Trades Guild sticker says ‘Together we are Stronger’. The sense of community witnessed in Mathew’s photography, then, is still alive in the streets today.

    Mathew’s photographs engage with the modern audience because we see a mirror to our own time. These photographs are a vital reminder of the everyday and a celebration of life in the city of London.

    C.A. Mathew: Photographs of Spitalfields a Century Ago is at Eleven Spitalfields Gallery, 11 Princelet Street, E1 6QH from 7 March – 25 April.