Random

This weekend was quite random.

First, on Saturday, I reserved my afternoon for a mysterious experience in Hoxton. I think I found it through this week's Le Cool newsletter, and as soon as I read the description, I signed in to get my slot for the day. Actually, it was the fact that it involved finding out about the location by means of clues sent days in advance and reading about it what made it quite interesting for me.

The event was called Traces, and it was basically a very elaborated art/furniture/jewellery display by upcoming artist inspired on the location and the theme around it.

The clues lead, drop by drop (actually, a few of them spreaded around the area, literally posted in random places) by email and Twitter, narrowing the location around Shoreditch and providing with a big of insight and history about the area, but specifically in the corner of Hoxton Overground Station. Just there in the corner: a derelict Victorian Pub in 32 Cremer Street, formerly called Harwar St. The team made a research on the archives to find out that the upstairs part of said pub, used to be a brothel (and one of the reasons was that it was a normal practice at the time, not to specify on the registry of the establishment the type of activity carried out). From them, the team developed a story, some characters and found the group of artist to base their pieces on it.

The result was a candlelit building, hidden behind a green main door, with a dense atmosphere very well recreated with the help of dried flowers, wood and all sorts (plus the +30 degrees hitting the streets of London at that time, that made it more victorian-realistic but a bit unbearable).

Everything was touchable, smellable and obviously observable. Actually, the story was so elaborate that there were (fictional) love letters from clients to the girls showing their love and subsequent anger for being ignored, very clearly portrayed in the evolution of the handwriting (the last letter of the admirer had a very clear upset calligraphy).

Such a peculiar way of exhibiting artists artwork. Definitely worth popping around, but what a pity not to be able to capture some images of the rooms.

Some more info about the pieces here.

Although for some reason I was expecting a treasure hunt or more mystery solving in there, I thought that showcasing pieces this way is a really good idea. Much more engaging, fun and different (oh well, and FREE).

 

And then my usual Sunday street art hunt, that normally ends up in Shoreditch, as it the epicentre for most of the pieces of a big chunk of artists. I went straight to Ebor St to, first of all, take evidence of the new Flip's piece.

 

 

Nice fluorescent squid with a furry cat (?) on top. Flip

Being already in the area, I remember I read about the Mexican Festival going on this weekend in Rich Mix, so I decided to pop around to sneak in and get the latest edition of the free musical magazines around.

As per usual, I took a look at the downstairs part, where the cafeteria is, as it always shows interesting little exhibitions. Actually, I went there back in May to check CityzenKane's stuff within touching distance and I loved it.

Surprise: I came across a lot of little postcards sticked to the walls. The space was empty, but there was Sarah Hyndman. Sarah is actually the person behind the exhibition, so as soon as she saw that I was quite interested, she introduced herself and briefed me into the concept of the Project.

It is called Random Project 2012, and it is a project made by people all around the world. The idea starts from choosing a number from 1 to 100. Each number is related to a specific word, so once chosen, the participants had to design a postcard related to that word and London.

 

 

 

The result is therefore, an interpretation of the views of Londoners and visitors towards that That given word and the city; or literally citing:

Random Project 2012

A growing collection of postcards which are created by everybody. These celebrate 2012 and are visually documenting a historic year. Curated by Sarah Hyndman.

Sarah's idea is to ultimately, by the end of the year, order all the postcards chronologically to get a better picture of the feelings of the participants towards the City, specially to be able to detect the change of behaviour or awareness towards the Olympics games, before and after.

 

Just as Sarah was explaining to me the concept I was getting more and more excited about it. I am aware of how blindly I am in love with London, but some others are not as much. Probably people born and raised here have seen enough of it, or tourist may have a hard time when coinciding with some disruptions in the tube; others may have the most exciting trip of their lives and others may find London just dull and overcrowded.

But it is that essence, the pros and cons, the black and the white, the good and the bad and the colourful range of opinions and points of view in between what makes it exciting. For such an overcrowded yet lonely city, this is a great way of putting together all the thoughts and make it a bit warmer.

 

Bank Holiday.

People may or may not agree with the presence of the Queen in this country, but the fact that the Jubilee is celebrated and involves a Bank Holiday is reason enough to be happy.

 

 

A visitor from Amsterdam and the ticket evidence of his/her trip to the Olympic Site

 

Great British Sunday with a Roast

 

 

 

 

Looks like it is getting a bit crowded at 10 Downing St. One at a time! (Oh, and a bit of summer romance of Boris and David).

 

 

 

 

Somebody was quite happy for Wiggins

 

 

 

Because we all know that diamond is made of carbon. Just as graphite, but different structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

'This is not like home'. Is it better? Is it worse?

 

OH-O. I am in your pants. This one confused me. H2O? Water? I tried to applied my organic chemistry knowledge but couldn't come up with a solution. What can be in your pants with so many OH and O groups? The first thing I though was sugar, but then, it is a bit strange.

 

 

 

London. The COOLest capital! A bet this person came when it was pouring rain. Still, a lovely drawing of the city (observe the fact that is full of pigeons hehe)

 

 

I liked this one a lot. I suppose the given word was SILVER, easily linked to Silver medal for example. But is is funny how this person has related silver to grey silver hair. I would say that this person is quite young but is starting to get his/her first and becoming conscious about it. Still, he/she dignifies them by naming them Silver instead of the ordinary and depressing grey. Good one.

 

Somebody had a nice and peaceful view of the full moon laying on the grass.

 

 

Full-on football fan and fervent twitter user. I loved the way the person captured the reaction of the famous social network with all the hashtags (#Euro2012) involved and the users.

 

 

Academy Awards 2012. 'Most Miserable' performance in a feature film. A hope this person was talking about the closing ceremony.

The impressive thing is that the participants come from all around the world. From Sao Paulo to Mumbai, and all ages.

 

 

The worse thing is that I almost didn't get to see this. Just when I arrived at Rich Mix, Sarah was taking the last pictures to shut the doors of the exhibition in less than an hour.

 

But Random Project is not finished. As I said, the project will wrap up in December, with a big layout of the time scale and the evolution of the city from the point of view of resident and visitors in Postcard format. Needless to say, there is still time to send more, so do it:

 

Pick a number between 1 & 100 and send it to word@random-project.co.uk.
We'll email you your word and full details.

But talking about randomness... what's going on lately at the Sunday (Up) Market in Brick Lane?

 

Climbing walls apparently...

 

Arrow of love? Robin Hood came all the way from Nottingham to see the Olympics? A little Viking invasion?

I will find out, but that will be another story

 

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The Wick

On Friday, we all woke up with the news that the London Pleasure Gardens had gone into administration, most probably caused by the big fiasco after cancelling Bloc for yet unclarified reasons (major Health and Safety issues). Shame, because I attended the premature opening the last day of June and I had a blast (most probably because it was the first sunny day of the summer up to that date. In my opinion, the place had potential, and therefore, I decided to design my own t-shirt to mourn the loss, as a thoughtful memory of the place.

The amount of effort put on my tribute t-shirt needed to be compensated with a fair amount of street food and new discoveries around the food, so I forced my friends C and K to Dalston at night, to the highly recommended Street Feast now in Dalston (didn't like it in Shoreditch and didn't tried it when in Camden). Shame that I have no evidence of the murder, but our Rib meat roll was famous on Friday amonst the visitors and acted as an improvised PR for the stall ('The Ribman'). In the twilight of the night, before heading to the parking lot where the market was placed, we, very insightfully, managed to discovered a quite tempting roof terrace. After digesting the 'celebrity' sandwich, we run curious to said building for a sneak peak: and it was totally worth it.

The Print House Gallery in Dalston opens its doors for us to enjoy their roof top, called by them Roof Park. Nice views.

But the hightlight of the weekend was undoubtedly the plan for Saturday. Bravely, K and I decided to adventure ourselves to the far East, where no-one has gone before -lie; it is actually near the Olympic site- (I just enjoy saying it)

Suggested by Le Cool London and apparently sponsored by Fiji Water, the Artesian Wanders (summer edition, because the Winter one, wanders -haha- around Southbank -saves for later-), has its starting point at Hackney Wick. A mere one station away from the, now crowded, Olympic Site but yet unexplored, it is an area surrounded by green and warehouses. Still industrial. The first thing I noticed was a Christiaan Nagel's mushroom (looks like the guy has been very busy lately, for my enjoyment), which certified that I was in the right place, and unprecedented clean streets compared to mine. Oh wow - I thought to my self-, while looking at the map finding the first landmark to find.

A shroom from Christiaan Nagel acting as a Northern Star in our route...

It was there really, hidden between some now up-cycled warehouses, in Prince Edward St turned into studios, the very appealing Hackney Pearl, that unfortunately I was not hungry enough to try and next to it, SEE Studio, hosting a very interesting exhibition about how the locals from the Wick lived the Olympic constructions. Also, thousands of copies of THE WICK paper, created, edited and printed by them, and of which I saved a copy to carefully study at home.

We found a giant shed with a cool exhibition right next to the Pearl. I forgot to ask the guy about his name. Shame on me. Gnosis by RSH, in Wallis Rd.

A quick visit to Imperial & Standard and then we managed to head to the (now I know it's famous) White Post Lane.

First thing to notice: the walls decorated with what looked to me like traditional brand logos from early XX century. After doing my homework and researching more about it, I was actually not far from the truth: It was a regeration project by the arty Bread Collective, to pay some sort of tribute to what Hackney Wick used to be: terribly industrial landmark, house of famous or less famous British manufacturers of some sort (and also land of post-war debri). The result was a really impressive street painted with those logos from the old times from brands (I strongly recommend the reading about each individual one in their blog) most probably are still in the memories of a lot of people. The project is called The Walls Have Ears, and is the sort of thing I really enjoy finding more things about. I think it is a great idea and the execution was brilliant (you gotta love a bit of colour and typography in your street).

And when you least expect it... boom... An unseen CityzenKane

The corner on the opposite side of the road, advertised a cafe called Electric Matchbox but unfortunately, a guy, closed the fence behind us (leaving the door opened) and that and the fact that it look dead from the basement made us walk back to the main street. Had potential though. I had a funny feeling that those stairs could take us to a nice roof top or something like that.

Is somebody in there?

But then we headed towards a sign that announced The Yard but couln't find it very easily (we didn't put much effort on it, must admit), but by looking to our right side, towards the canal, we noticed a big White Building (actually called so).

I toof Hackney Wick and a map of the area + Fish Island (they were included as posters on the last edition of The Wick - just put it on my living room, because I'm THAT cool -). It is a very nice map, though.

Just found it funny. Looked nothing but funny, the place. (**Update. I just Googled the place. I am not going to link it)

It was actually at that moment, when we decided to stop for a bit and take a look at the views of the canal. A dark grey cloud was constantly threatening us, but we couldn't miss the opportunity of sitting al fresco. We were immediately tempted by the incredible smell of freshly made pizza coming from the building. What it actually was: The Crate, a microbrewery slash pizzeria by the canal. 

So we sat in an empty communal table and waited for our Sage and truffled potato pizza (would have never tried the combo myself) and drank the house cider while philosophising about our lives. It was ten minutes after, probably halfway though the pizza and the idea of leaving it all and moving to a warehouse, when the graphite-grey cloud rained on our parade. Literally. Nevertheless, the day was still too beautiful, so we all run inside to keep sharing our tables until the shower was over.

Cyclops, Mighty Mo, Gold Peg and Sweet Toof

The mighty pizza...

Cool lamps. Old dodgy mattress springs and wire.

And we went back to the route

At that point, really overlooking then Olympic site (I refuse to put ANOTHER picture of the Stadium), I managed to find more of my street art heroes in less than 3 meters around, just in a very humble corner in the middle of Hackney Wick.

Jonesy

Another CityzenKane

I think I read somewhere that this was of the most earliest Stik in East London. Should I call it Vintage Stik?

A bit of Kinska, that I though I had lost her. But there she was...

And we kept walking the canal up to Victoria Park. 

And the rest is history...

I ended up on Sunday hunting for Tropical Clusters around Shoredtich, but that's another story.