"Hackney Studios" by Jenny Lewis is a record of East London's personal creative havens. A family tree in order of each artist's tip of the next to feature = including my recommendation of Rosy Nicholas who is the cover star! Here I am in 2013 at Lighthouse Studios which is a space I have since given up, like a large percentage of artists in the series. Here is a soundbite I wrote for Jenny in 2015 when the project was covered by The Guardian: "Hackney, I lost you': the London creatives priced out of their studios"
"Stepping off the bus into Dalston for the very first time to find Peter Jensen's studio in 2001, I not not only found work experience but a whole a new life experience. This is where I followed suit to settle in the city. This is where I planted my roots and recently witnessed the canopy of high-rises bionically shoot up. The shadow of redevelopment has literally been cast over the multicultural magic of Ridley Road. A Shoreditch stampede flooded in from the city at the weekend, stopped out and not gone home. The artist’s warehouse studios are now a flicker of PC screensavers between partitioned walls. It’s the future, its real time, its IRL. It’s city life. Its metamorphosis. Its survival of the fittest. Its history in the making and taking over. Too quick. Too soon. Its out of control. I couldn’t hold on. I’m out of positive spin and been spun out. I’ve gone. Hackney I LOVE YOU. I lost you."
Above are my snaps from Jenny's book launch where she made an exhibition of the leaves from the book as a tree to show how the evolution evolved into each branch of friendship to follow.
Buy the book on Hoxton Mini Press here.
