Our Wick Curiosity Book Shop collection is now on display in the public works studio at The White Building. If you want to have a browse, just email us and we arrange a time to come and see us.

Also if you have any further contributions to the collection of books, postcards, pamphlets, newspapers, poster, t-shirts etc... which deal with Hackney Wick that you know about and which should be included in the collection please let us know. We are keen to develop the library into a more extensive shared and open resource about the area and its transformation.

JOIN US & CONTRIBUTE TO
THE WICK CURIOSITY BOOK SHOP
part archive / part shop

We are collecting publications, books, posters, postcards, fanzines ... about Hackney Wick to be displayed or sold at the HACKNEY WICK FESTIVAL on the 16th of September 2012. If you would like to contribute a publication to our growing archive either for display or for sale or if you know of a publication you think should be included please get in touch: INFO@WICKCURIOSITYSHOP.NET

We can collect any contributions next week before the festival.

The WICK CURIOSITY BOOK SHOP will be hosted by WICK ON WHEELS (WOW) a roaming production and recycling unit based on an old milk float, which is roaming across Hackney Wick & Fish Island and the surrounding areas of East London. WOW is an open resource which engages with local communities to reuse, recycle, repair and re-make. WOW explores and encourages direct, collective on site production using existing local materials, resources and skills.

Colin Priest from Studio Columba is putting together a show of recent academic enquiries by students on the areas around Hackney Wick. 'The exposition showcases the coincidental diversity of thought and endeavor by the next generation of architects, designers and writers in time for the London Architecture Festival 2012'.

As part of the show we will be holding a Wick Session entitled "Picking Up The Pieces" which will bring together makers and cultural producers from the Hackney Wick area who explore issues around, recycling, reuse, and the collective production of public situations. The session alongside the academic exposition Between the A12 and Lea River, will feature projects and practitioners which draw from the physical, cultural and creative resources of Hackney Wick and its proximity to produce inventive solutions. Highlighting ways of working and thinking which encourage a hands on and bottom up approach to making with results ranging from stools to temporary cultural spaces and everything in between. Speakers will give a short 5 minute introduction to their work followed by an open discussion.

Full list of speakers to be confirmed shortly

Tuesday 3rd of July 2012 6pm
At
Sugarhouse Studios
Unit A2, 107 High Street
Stratford, E15 2QQ

Hilary and Isaac's book - The Art of Dissent is about to hit the shelves. Hilary is a co founder of the Wick Curiosity Shop and has been closely involved in many of our events, collections and outings in various disguises. Our last collaboration was Wick Session No:4 entitled Hackney Wick Un-Regulated which initially was meant to become a contribution to the book. Unfortunately some heavy editing had to take place.

The book will be launched on Saturday the 16th of June 2012 at the Chisenhale Gallery

'The Art of Dissent: Adventures in London's Olympic State' brings together a body of work that has emerged in response to the arrival of the Olympics in East London.

Artists, writers, film makers, academics, photographers and activists intervene in the dominant discourse, language and images of regeneration and the Games. The book examines both the political economy of the mega-event and the silenced history of Lower Lea valley, making a powerful case against the politics of erasure and the corporatisation of urban space. Issues of land grab, displacement, military urbanism and exceptional measures of legal protection are explored through essays, images, poetry, fiction and installations.

Edited by Hilary Powell and Isaac Marrero. Published by Marshgate Press. Designed by See Studio. 2012.

Book Launch

Please do come along to our launch event on Saturday 16th June 2012. From 2-5pm we'll be at the Chisenhale Gallery with 'The Landscape of Dissent: London 2012 and the transformation of the East End' - a panel discussion as part of the gallery's Open Research programme chaired by Mike Raco, Professor of Urban and Regional Governance, The Bartlett, UCL and including Anna Minton, author of Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the twenty-first-century city, Paul Watt, Senior Lecturer Urban Studies, Birkbeck, Alberto Duman, artist and lecturer, Middlesex University and Laura Oldfield Ford, artist and writer.

We first came across performance]SPACE[ during the 'Printers Paradise' walk. The door was open and a small sign invited us in. A quick detour into a smoke filled room with people performing across the space seemingly ignoring the audience of 20 strangers that just walked in on them. As first encounters go, this one was curious enough to get in touch and find out more about what was going on. We met Bea, Benjamin and Anna who have been generous in offering their space for one of our Wick Sessions (unfortunately it was double booked) and have recently invited us to a very local dinner as part of their international residency project [neighbourHOOD] EVENT which will conclude on Saturday the 3rd of December.

[neighbourHOOD] EVENT

Saturday 3rd December 11am - 11pm
Following a 10 day intensive research residency the [neighbourHOOD] artists will draw together an exhibition and evening of performance art and film. Artists: Tine Voeks, Maria Lucia, Benjamin Sebastian, Kimbal Quist Bumbstead, Liam Yeates and isik met knutsdotter

Exhibition: 11am - 11pm
Developed and led by the artists, the exhibition is anticipated to grow out of the research-lab, through install-action and the exhibition of research material. Constructed throughout the day, the exhibition will both lay bare artistic process and weave together loose ends to form a live archival document of Hackney Wick now. The exhibition will also include performance-for-camera photographic prints from each artist, produced site-specifically in collaboration with ]performance s p a c e [ photographer Marco Berardi.

Performances: 7 - 9 pm (TBC)
New performances made in response to the [neighbourHOOD] residency in Hackney Wick.

Film: 9pm - 'DEFAULT THE BRUTAL'
by Enrico Masi, produced by CAUCASO FACTORY (10' UK, 2011, color/B-w, 16mm/Full HD)
'Discovering a new space in east London, after the negative stigma of the 80's, Stratford will now present himself as a thrilling new urban device for people to move, work, shop and travel. The increasingly spectacular Olympic park, with Anish Kapoor's monumental red panoramic tower growing in his middle and a special toilet only for the queen. 'Default the Brutal' is like forecasting on weather conditions.'

CAUCASO FACTORY have worked in collaboration with ]performance s p a c e [ and PAS throughout [neighbourbourHOOD] to document the activity unfolding. The collective's current area of research has focused on the regeneration and development of Olympic boroughs and the current socio-economic climate across Europe.

[neighbourHOOD] is a free event
Beer, gin and bagels will be served all day!!

Come & join us at Wick Green & help transform the play equipment using materials from the Albion Kids Show.

TAKE OVER
WICK GREEN
OCTOBER 6TH 2011
1PM - 6 PM
Opposite St Mary's Church

Pirate Ships, Puppet Theatre, Parachute Tents, Wheels & Swings will be available for you and your family to play on.The day will help inform more permanent future changes to Wick Green.

NOT JUST FOOTBALL PITCHES .....

Tell us what you'd really like to do on Mabley Green. It can be anything you like, anything at all - from the fantastical to the practical.

Then on Saturday 20 August, all of your ideas will be sketched out and painted HUGE on the grass of Mabley Green using Hackney Council's football-pitch painting machine.

Better still, your ideas will be used to help kick start a new Master Plan for Mabley Green. So get creative and help build a brand new park.

The People's Pitch is a collaboration between public works and Christopher King, with support from muf and the Design for London.

All ideas will be published on the PEOPLES PITCH WEBSITE.

If you'd like to get in touch, email us on peoplespitch@gmail.com

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commissioned by muf and Design for London

Proposals are invited for meaningful temporary art works and/or other projects to be situated in the public realm, (including web-based works) to address the complex and dynamic environment of Hackney Wick and Fish Island. The work is to be exhibited or launched at Hackney Wicked, July 2011.
The aim of the commissions is to test the capacity for "home grown" art and other creative practices to be part of the ongoing debate to shape the future of Hackney Wick and Fish Island.
The proposal must therefore address or respond to at least one of the statements regarding art practice, regeneration and Hackney Wick/Fish Island from the "We are artists how can we help" debate, these are illustrated and listed in the brief and appendix. You may proposal a work that opposes or supports a particular statement.
You can download the brief and appendix here

Timetable
Call for submissions 3rd May
Deadline for submissions 24th May
Selection 27th May
Contract signing 31st May
The work to be complete and exhibited at Hackney Wicked festival July 2011
You can download the submission template as a word document here
and the submission template as a zipped InDesign document here
For information updates you can go to the "we are artists how can we help" blog

The Olympic Games, Urban renewal & Surveillance: A marathon of presentations, film, sound, performance and discussion

24 HOUR OLYMPIC STATE

The Olympics can arguably be described as a laboratory for the neoliberal city utopia; after all, the Games represent the success of a brand and an event based on a combination of massive urban renewal, dodgy governance, hugely profitable advertising and broadcasting contracts, the corporatisation and militarisation of public space, and the criminalisation of dissent.

The Olympics depend, to a large scale, on their ability to operate on a clean, consensual space: without history, without discontents, without opposition. The Olympic Park is the fantasy of such space, Jim Woodall's Olympic State installation, currently on show at See Studio Exhibition Space, is one of its disruptions.

The Olympics Games is the strategic occupation of the social and economic space of the city, but they allow, or even invite, for a tactical response. The goal of this 24h marathon of activities, echoing the 24hr surveillance of the site, is to bring together artists, activists and researchers challenging the Olympic dream.

We wish to amplify Jim Woodall's radical gesture by summoning an assemblage of talks, films, interventions, performances and concerts which are part of the myriad of militant productions taking place in the city right now.

In particular, we are interested in exploring the dynamics of urban renewal brought to East London by the Olympics and the issue of surveillance and control of public space. This 24 hour event aims at providing a generous and welcoming space for discussion. Join us for an evening, a night, a morning or a day - or stay up for the whole marathon...

24 HOUR OLYMPIC STATE is curated by Isaac Marrero, Cristina Garrido and Jim Woodall

You can download the press release here

Thursday 5th May 18:00 - Friday 6th May 17:59

SEE STUDIO EXHIBITION SPACE
13 PRINCE EDWARD ROAD,
HACKNEY WICK,
E9 5LX
020 8986 6477

Barbeque beautifully prepared and served by 'The Sit Down Affair'.