Art in Leabank Square - X Street

Remember back to the lovely day we all had during the Hackney Wick Festival..........


........ahhhhhhhh summer


Where was I - oh yes! A lot of us spoke to Renata Gaspar about doing an art installation here in Leabank Square. Well - a member of her group, Ioana Paun, has just been granted the funds from the Romanian Cultural Institute through the Attic Arts Residency Programme. So we are going to be included in the amazing:


X Street - The live noise of Hackney Wick (http://xstreetnoise.blogspot.com/ )

X Street project is an artistic initiative that explores the perception around the implications and realities of a burning moment in London’s urban history: the building of the Olympic site. The project takes place from September 2009-February 2010.

The four artists involved in this project (Bulley/Gaspar/Paun/Redmer) are focusing on the sonic environment created in a key area from Eastern London. Hackney Wick is situated very close to the construction site and its sound gives a complexity of information. The ears have a defining role in the perception of the environment we live in. Audio information is vast and dense which is why humans create filters in order to process it. We stay in a train station and our ears hear train announcements every 2 seconds, conversations, train breaks, our mobile phone ringing, the wind and a baby crying 10 meters away, still we are only conscious of the fact that someone is calling from work because we are late.

The artists are currently researching the area in terms of stories and history, inhabitants and transitory people and are also building a sound archive. After this, they will devise a performance where the audience, using wireless headphones, will plunge in an audio experience while inhabiting the actual area.

The artists worked together in a previous project in a launderette in Peckham where, using similar creative principles of sound and live art, investigated social friction and immigrants related issues. The X Street project is a natural continuation for the young group and is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute through Attic Arts Residency Programme.



So Renata and her merry gang of artists will be walking around Leabank Square & Hackney Wick for the next few weeks, chatting to us & recording some sounds. Please don't mistake them for spies - they genuinely want to do an amazing art installation - based on Leabank Square. Give them all the support you can - Thanks!