Oh my God… what a festival
August 3rd, 2010 by annamal2
Wow… the madness of Hackney WickED is now just about starting to slow down and I’ve taken a deep breath and need today to reflect on it all! All I can say is that Friday night the masses started to pour into the Wick and the streets started to come to life in a wonderfully wicked way. Our official media launch party at Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery was amazingly well attended especially considering that it was a Friday evening… which media go to events on a Friday? But they did. With five film crews documenting and covering the night, too, it all felt very very special. I see myself there where I am not, curated by Mary Cork told stories of a reflected utopia – my favourite had to be the vulcher dinner party, shot in northern Spain. And the fab Punk Choir with their spontaneous outbursts of finely tuned and conducted punk hits. Thanks guys.
I did not stop the entire festival – day or night.
After the press launch we rushed off to catch A Sit Down Affair at Oslo House – lucky to get in as it was packed and sold out (relieved I’d decided to reserve a space the week before when putting together the enewsletter!). The setting was idyllic on the terrace of Oslo House, candles, warm summer evening atmosphere… mixed with the wondrous performances and edge added by Cosmic Mega Brain… and music… and fantastic food… and people… and even Douce Angoisse, my favourite Wick songstress did a set stood rocking the terrace perched on a table! (although I missed it, mama mia… what bad timing to go to the toilet).
Then parties here, parties there… ended up in Peanut Factory (I think).
Home, few hours kip, then up again and off to the Lord Napier pub to set up the Art Hub.
And no idea how I had thought I would manage to do this on my own, with no transport or help! So, it is lucky that the WickED universal energy fairy throws you a helping when you most need it – Nuray. Nuray I met at the Sit Down Affair and amazingly offered to completely help me get the Hub sorted, so at 10am he rocked up at my house, with a van, with a tool box and off we went to set up at the Art Hub and my photography exhibition, working against the clock in order to be ready by the time the Deutsche Bank tour were dropping by at 2pm to check us out. Which we just about managed.
Iker Garcia http://thingsworthseeing.blogspot.com/ started his live painting performance with fellow artists and friend Sisco. Both hugely talented and produced great pieces that now reside on the Napier walls… the crowds flowed through all weekend and people stopped to watch, or chill out and rest their weary selves for a while. This is also the first year that we produced merchandise and although we had a slow start it was flying out of the place by Sunday. (And thanks to my friends Clare Smith and Hayley, Half Price, Baker for helping me there!).The merchandise is a great help as this festival is run on a shoestring budget and by producing merchandise hopefully we can start generating income for the festival and make it more sustainable for future years… although right now I don’t even know if we broke even, and there are a box of missing t-shirts somewhere! Hey ho – it was nice just to have them and see people walking around the festival with them on. Thanks Marie-Louise Jones for providing the WickED (and dirty) fairies design!
Highlights? Well personally I didn’t get to see many of the studios, galleries or pop up spaces as I was manning (or womaning) the Lord Napier every day, but thanks to Matt and his family volunteering, I did get to join Sunday’s Deutsche Bank tour, where we explored some galleries in Mother Studios, popped into Elevator Galley (although we couldn’t see the installations switched on due to a certain diva with her rude mouth and bad attitude… my only one lowlight of the festival). But that wasn’t going to ruin the festival mood and DB could laugh it off, too. We marched on to 92 White Post Lane to see the Schwartz installation… amazing stuff – another festival fave must be the 3d installation there… and the little mirrored thing in the wall… Who did that?
Then another nice march along the canal took us Fish-side where we were greeted by a man in a red van, who had a portable installation. Great again. On to Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery where we actually got a chance to talk with the artists about their work. Although we’d had the launch party there I still hadn’t seen the work for running around, but Sunday afternoon I had 30 mins of peace listening to our guide Alard (amazing man) talk with the artists and get insights into their work. I loved Greta Alfaro’s piece filmed in Northern Spain.. http://www.gretalfaro.blogspot.com/ reminded me of my month of writing in isolation earlier this year, my hermit retreat nearby where this was filmed in a little place called Quintanilla Escalada.
Basically there is just too much to say on the festival – I probably saw 5% of all the amazing stuff that the people of Hackney Wick and Fish Island put on. It could be compared to being on a magical mystery tour, walking the streets of the Wick at festival time. I’m so grateful for everyone getting involved, putting an amazing amount of energy into it and together producing something that is so special, worthwhile and seriously free and seriously fun. It makes me emotional.
So finally, want to raise the roof for Adam Beale for making our Wicker Man (Chicken… Cock), and those wonderful peeps at Tax Deductible for building the tension as we awaited the match to Cock union to occur. What was it? “The Cock, the Cock, the Cock is on fire… Burn Cock Burn??”
I dunno… I am a dead woman walking but I would do the whole festival again tomorrow if I could. Shame we have to wait until next year… although have some preliminary plans to have a volunteers thank you party and then start an events schedule every quarter (ish), so we won’t be quiet for long!
Signing out and to bed. Annamal.
ps. please upload your photographs to our official flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackneywicked/
