Hackney’s Here!

Children from six Hackney schools collaborated with six visual artists to create gigantic works of art for exhibition.

Exploring scale and what it means to live in Hackney in 2010, children and artists were challenged to fill the 4,300 sq ft outdoor courtyard at SPACE with works of art which demonstrated the ambitions and achievements of Hackney’s young school pupils.

Artists Chila Burman, Polly Brannan, Helen Marshall, Leslie Kulesh, Harold Offeh and Charlie Woolley worked with children aged 3 to 9 from Berger, Lauriston, Morningside, St Dominic’s Roman Catholic and Orchard primary schools, and Wentworth nursery.

OPENING EVENT: Friday 18th June at SPACE

Projects included:

Chila Burman
LIFE SIZE COLLAGES OF CHILDREN WITH 4 ARMS AND 3 LEGS
Photocopied image, magazines and glitter stickers, scanned objects, figures and text cut-outs combine in a playful collage made by and about the students.

Polly Brannan
THE WAY WE PLAY
The children learnt about Hackney’s history and invented songs about the local area. During the exhibition, visitors will be invited to play a bespoke game that will test their knowledge of Hackney.

Charlie Woolley
WE LOVE WENTWORTH NURSERY
The children have made flags and placards preparing to stage a protest. Flags and placards have a multifaceted nature, at times they are draped in elegiac silence and at others waved in anger or celebration. This is a celebration of play, of time spent learning and interacting with others.

Harold Offeh
HACKNEY’S 1ST BEAUX ARTS BALL
Lauriston School pupils have created Hackney’s answer to the 1931 New York Beaux Arts Ball, in which leading architects of the day dressed up in costumes of their buildings as part of an event to celebrate the city. Favourite Hackney buildings and landmarks have been made into costumes which will be paraded and presented.

Helen Marshall
THIS IS A STICK DOWN
Exploring Hackney through drawing and photography, Orchard school pupils have made an archive of images with a specific focus on the body, buildings, and objects. The exhibition will display digital montages of their drawings and photographs together in the SPACE Media room and hundreds of these unique images will be freely pasted to the walls of the courtyard.

Leslie Kulesh
THE HACKNEY BANDITS
Each student was given a disposable camera and sent out into Hackney for a week to capture their lives on film, encouraging careful composition and consideration of light. Images were then collaged together on large sheets and bound into a huge scrapbook, each page a piece in the jigsaw of Hackney.

Hackney’s Here! was developed by SPACE in partnership with East Hackney Education Action Zone and The Learning Trust.