Last May’s Arts Emergency Response exhibition at the Cass. Photograph: Steve Blunt
More than 2,000 people have signed a petition against plans to close an art school with “deep roots” to East London.
Last month London Metropolitan University approved plans to consolidate all teaching to its Holloway Road campus, allowing its buildings at Moorgate and Aldgate to be sold.
The Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, on Commercial Street, described as the ‘Aldgate Bauhaus’ by artist Bob and Roberta Smith, will have to relocate to Holloway Road by September 2017.
Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs said he was “deeply shocked” at the decision to relocate the campuses.
“The loss of all the student places in the Aldgate area is a blow, but the decision to relocate the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design is particularly upsetting,” the Mayor said.
“The Cass through its predecessor institutions has deep roots in the East End and has a wonderful reputation for combining academic study and creative production.”
But Professor John Raftery, Vice Chancellor of London Met, defended the decision, saying: “We are excited about this project, which aims to create a one campus, one community university.
“We believe this will benefit our students, who will enjoy an enhanced student experience, and our staff, who will have more opportunities to collaborate.
A change.org petition led by Cass Faculty Officer Amanda Marillier has already attracted over 2,000 signatures.
“The proposed closure of The Cass and Moorgate campuses represents a massive attack on students, staff and access to education,” the petition states.
“These cuts can potentially lead to courses being ‘discontinued’, staff losing their jobs, and prospective students losing the opportunity to study as the number of student places are reduced.”
Bold as brass… Beirut get their instruments out at St John at Hackney. Photograph: Russell Parton
It’s been four years since Beirut last released an album; in which time I’d more or less forgotten about the group that made Balkan folk cool about a decade ago.
So watching the band at St John at Hackney, a venue tailor-made for expansive harmonies and intricate brass, was like meeting up with an old friend.
Fortunately, to push the analogy further, this old friend hadn’t changed all that much.
Treated to a slew of songs off new album NoNoNo, most had all the oomph and yearning beauty of old, the electric piano-led ‘Perth’ and heavily percussive ‘Gibraltar’ slipping in seamlessly alongside old favourites ‘Nantes’ and ‘Santa Fe’.
Trumpets blared on ‘The Gulag Orkestar’, undiminished after so long in the repertoire, whilst ‘Postcards from Italy’ (the zippy ukulele one) was just the right side of twee.
Three brass players spread across the front of the stage, proving a sight and sound for sore senses when going for it in unison. But then the next moment the trio became sweet harmony singers, offering up vocal parts worthy of Fleet Foxes.
In the middle of it all, of course, was Zach Condon, this enigmatic American who has forged a lasting career through total immersion in Eastern European folk.
Keyboards, ukulele, keyboard and (of course) trumpet, he plays them all, and in his own way, his solos immersed in Balkan scales whilst flat beats act like a marching elephant.
At one point, whilst getting the keyboard ready between songs, Condon tells us, in a rare instance of ‘patter’, that the previous night a cable had come loose mid-song, cutting out the instrument completely. It was hardly the anxiety of a rock ‘n‘ roller, though it was an insight into the perfectionism that every song at least equal to its recorded version.
Later we learned it was the band’s last night in Europe. Could I detect relief in their voices and body language? Perhaps, and there were few other attempts to connect with the audience, save the dutiful expressions of thanks at appropriate times. These, however, were quibbles that paled in the face of such original song-writing and technical virtuosity.
Green Lanes is a bustling stronghold for London’s Turkish, Kurdish, Greek and Cypriot communities, where you can find everything from wedding dresses to exotic jewellery and late night shish kebabs.
So on learning it was also the title of a new album by East London duo Ultimate Painting, I was hoping for something similarly rough-around-the-edges and eclectic. But Green Lanes the record owes a little more to the songwriting of Pavement, The Velvet Underground and The Beatles than to anything on the 6.3-mile stretch between Newington Green and Winchmore Hill.
Band members Jack Cooper and James Hoare recorded the album in the latter’s analogue home studio off Green Lanes, with the result something that could have been made at any time during the past 50 years.
Opener ‘Kodiak’ sets the tone with a melodic guitar riff that snakes around wistful vocals, and a dreamy, harmonised chorus that repeats enough times to force its way into your skull whether you like it or not. ‘Sweet Chris’ follows a similar pattern, with a straightforward melody and harmonies and a simple song structure.
Quickly, you realise there’s nothing massively original going on here, though the vocal melodies are beguiling and there’s some stellar, understated guitar work.
During the lolloping ‘(I’ve got the) Sanctioned Blues’, there’s a name-check for London Fields, but the lyrics err more towards the ethereal than tangible narratives, with ‘Woken by Noises’, a spoken blues romp reminiscent of ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ but for insomniacs, one notable exception.
These are well-crafted songs that sound nice, and there’s little to suggest that Ultimate Painting have any greater musical ambition for the album than that. It’s the musical equivalent of comfort food – a Spaghetti Bolognese perhaps – something delicious when done well but not always a challenge for the taste buds.
Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor in Spitalfields yesterday. Photograph: 19 Princelet Street
Flapjacks and bananas were the order of the day at 19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields yesterday for the visit of world-renowned artists Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor.
The artists stopped off at the house, home to a museum of immigration and diversity, during their seven mile ‘walk of compassion’ from the Central London to Stratford to raise awareness of the refugee crisis.
The museum’s volunteer staff greeted the artists, who were joined by up to 100 members of the public, with the “symbolic gesture” of bananas, apples, flapjacks and water.
“It was like some modern version of the loaves and the fishes,” said Susie Symes, chair of the 19 Princelet Street, a museum that tells the story of London’s refugees and migrants.
“We brought the food and drink out and the street seemed full. They had some but they were absolutely insistent that we shared it with the whole crowd. That sense of sharing is so much of what this message is.”
Ms Symes described the occasion as a “moving mixture of being very sad and very joyful”.
“Here is a man standing in our street who doesn’t want to be forced into refuge because of who he is and what he does,” said Ms Symes about dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
“And now here he is on our doorstep – that makes us feel very moved and very happy and yet at the same time we’re thinking about 20 million refugees and another 35 million internally displaced people in this world.”
19 Princelet Street is a museum run by volunteers that seeks to connect past stories of refugees and migrants and connect them to those of the present day.
“We’re a place that’s completely founded by refugees,” Ms Symes said. “I think Anish Kapoor saw this as perfect and we saw it as perfect. People came over in little boats in the sea 300 years ago, and people are drowning from little boats today.”
The artists, who both wore blankets across their shoulders to symbolise the needs of refugees, led the solidarity march from the Royal Academy in Central London, where Ai Weiwei is hosting an exhibition, finishing at Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal sculpture in Stratford in East London.
The still, murky waters of the Lee Navigation may provide a bucolic escape for some, though they are far from immune to the vicissitudes of city life.
Pollution has taken its toll on plants and wildlife, hulking new-builds cast shadows over the banks of the water, while boat dwellers on this 45km-stretch, running from Hertfordshire through East London to Limehouse Basin, are finding permanent moorings increasingly difficult to come by.
Photographer Sam Napper is trying to make permanent records of life on the Lee Navigation as it is now. His Leaside photography series goes on display this month at Leyas in Camden.
“It’s a wilderness in London and the other canals are not like that,” says the 29-year-old, a keen explorer of the canals who moved to East London five years ago.
“As you get further out of London the Lee Navigation becomes more rural, even though it’s still in London, whereas Regent’s Canal and the other ones are very urban spaces.”
After spending weeks on the towpath taking photographs, Napper developed a rapport with some of the people living on boats.
“A lot of the people I met were complaining about licences being removed, mooring spaces being privatised… a lot of people were upset but my slant is that it’s a way of life to be celebrated.
“One guy who moved there with his family has just celebrated his first year on the canal. He said to me that you know you can ‘do a canal’ when you’ve done a full season, because winter is so harsh.”
Napper’s photographs capture life on the canal in all its variety, from the joggers and plushy marshland to the bankside remains of Britain’s industrial past.
“It’s a real mix of people in there and I’m not coming from it just from the point of view of people on the canal boats. They’re a big part of the community but it’s just as important for people who want to use it for leisure,” Napper says.
A film and TV producer by day, Napper describes his photography style as “reportage” and observational.
“I really like finding a unique subject and trying to make it isolated and symmetrical so it feels like a whole new environment that no one’s ever seen before,” he says.
Leaside
Saturday 15 August
Leyas
20 Camden High Street
London
NW1
Camden, not Hackney, is the place with which the singer Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 of alcohol poisoning, will always be associated.
But for Hackney-born director Asif Kapadia, whose acclaimed documentary Amy tells the story of the singer’s precarious life and untimely death, Winehouse could have been “a girl from down the road”.
Unlike other films directed by Kapadia, such as the award-winning documentary Senna, Amy is a London film. And like many fellow Londoners, Kapadia was moved by the singer’s life.
“Something happened with Amy Winehouse,” says Kapadia, explaining why he decided to make the film. “I wanted to know how that happened in front of our eyes. How can someone die like that in this day and age?
“For me, she was like a girl from down the road. I grew up in the same part of the world. She could have been someone I knew, someone I was friends with or might have gone to school with. I thought we should investigate.”
Kapadia was born in 1972, the youngest of five children. He went to Homerton House school (now the site of City Academy) and began his film career as a runner on student films.
After undertaking an HND at Newport Film School, Kapadia studied film-making at the University of Westminster before completing a Masters in film and TV direction at the Royal College of Art.
Amy has already broken box office records, and looks set to challenge Senna, Kapadia’s documentary about Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, as the highest grossing British documentary of all time.
Like Amy Winehouse, Ayrton Senna was an icon who died in tragic circumstances. But researching the story and carrying out interviews for Senna proved a more straightforward process.
“With Senna there were a lot of books and a lot of people knew the story. With Amy it became apparent that no one knew the story, or that people were not willing to tell it.”
Many of Winehouse’s closest friends apparently took a ‘vow of silence’ after her funeral, so to complete the 100 plus interviews that make up the film’s narrative, the production team needed to win over their trust, a process that took almost a year.
“It was all quite recent and painful for a lot of people and there was a lot of guilt and a lot of baggage,” adds producer James Gay-Rees.
“The whole experience took an awful lot out of all these people, understandably.
It is hard to imagine what it must be like to see your closest childhood or teenage friend going through the perils of celebrity and mega-fame, knowing that there were underlying issues that would come to the fore.”
Kapadia made the songs and lyrics of Amy Winehouse central to the film. “Once you understand her life and you read the lyrics, they run much deeper than you might have thought,” he says.
“I thought all we have to do is unravel what these lyrics are about. That for me became the big revelation. This is a film about Amy and her writing.”
Roy Khalil playing Khalil al-Sakakini and Elena Voce playing his daughter Sala. Photograph: Andrew Bailey
Back in my school days, history lessons seemed either to be about the World Wars or Henry VIII and his six wives.
So speaking to Brian Rotman about his new play A Land without People, a staging of the historical events that led to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, I have to admit to being on shaky ground.
“British people know nothing about this,” he says, to my awkward silence on the other end of the phone.
“They say: ‘Do you mean pre-Israel was in the hands of the Brits? And it was the way the Brits dealt with it that produced the historical narrative?”
It might be wise to do some cursory Wikipedia-ing before going to see Rotman’s play, which premieres at the Courtyard Theatre this month.
The play centres on three crucial episodes in the run-up to the declaration of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, with the main characters all historical figures.
But Rotman, a retired university maths professor who lives between London and the United States, insists the play is driven by events not characters, with modern events in Israel the play’s inspiration.
Rotman returned to London last summer during the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, which according to the UN resulted in 2251 (mostly Gazan) deaths.
“I realised immediately that my daily reading of the New York Times at breakfast had not served me well in terms of informing me what was going on,” says Rotman.
“So out of anger and being deeply disturbed at what this state was doing I started writing this play. And it became an historical play.”
Rotman grew up in a Jewish family during the 1940s and 50s. His parents owned a confectionary shop on Brick Lane where he spent his formative years.
“I had a traditional upbringing in a Jewish household and had a Bar Mitzvah, but I rebelled and just became secular English middle class.”
Researching the play made Rotman aware of campaigns groups such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP), which opposes the policy of Israel towards the Palestinian territories.
“Because of this play I discovered there was a split in the Jewish population caused by Israel, and that made me very interested in who would be sympathetic to my response.
“I feel that with this play I’m putting my shoulder to the wheel, saying this is the historical truth of how the country was founded. People can make of it what they want.”
A Land Without People is at The Courtyard, Bowling Green Walk, 40 Pitfield Street, N1 6EU thecourtyard.org.uk 9 July – 1 August
The future of endangered arts organisation Rich Mix may be looking up following the election of John Biggs as Mayor of Tower Hamlets.
The new Labour Mayor has tweeted his support of the arts organisation, which is potentially facing closure due to a dispute with Tower Hamlets Council over the repayment of a £850,000 loan.
Asked in the run-up to the election about his plan for Rich Mix, Mayor Biggs replied: “Rich Mix is a great cultural asset and deserves the support of the council in securing a viable future serving our community.”
A petition launched in March to save Rich Mix from closure has received more than 16,000 signatures so far, with the organisation last month beaming messages of support on the wall of its building at 35–47 Bethnal Green Road.
@spileon RichMix is a great cultural asset and deserves the support of the council in securing a viable future serving our community
With a court date looming on 20 July, Rich Mix posted a statement on its website that read: “We have been very encouraged by some of the discussions that we had with a number of candidates in the run-up to the election, including the newly elected Mayor John Biggs.
“We are seeking an urgent meeting with him and the relevant officers and commissioners in the hope that we can find a way to settle, which will allow Rich Mix to continue to do the work that over 16,000 of you have told us they value.
“We are hopeful this may prove to be a way to finding a sensible settlement to what has been a long and debilitating dispute.”
John Biggs was elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets last week, narrowly defeating his nearest challenger Rabina Khan.
The election followed the ejection from office of former Mayor Lutfur Rahman, who was found guilty of electoral fraud in April.
Detail from RUN’s latest piece of street art in Lower Clapton
To be ubiquitous on the streets yet elusive in person are two of the unwritten rules of street art.
And Italian artist RUN ticks both boxes, his trademark hands and interlocking faces adorning walls everywhere from Shoreditch to the backstreets of Lower Clapton – yet he is known only by a pseudonym.
A third rule – to have a socially engaged or political message – is something RUN never used to concern himself with.
“The political statement is implicit in the act of painting on the street,” says the street artist.
But a commission to re-do a painting in Clapton Passage, on the side wall of what is now a veterinary practice, changed things for the artist.
RUN set out to paint some animals or something related to the natural world in the small passageway off Lower Clapton Road where his work has been visible for several years.
After making a start he returned five or six times, adding something new to the artwork each time.
Two days after the recent election, RUN was on his ladder finishing the piece off, when a member of the public seeing the artwork called up to him, shouting: “Ah-ha! It’s a banker! A banker on a lead!”
RUN describes the finished piece as a man with a chain around his neck “looking like a raging animal under anaesthetic and crawling like all the animals of the forest and the savanna.”
Airing political views in a public setting is breaking new ground for RUN, but instead of a feeling of release, the experience has brought with it some unfamiliar anxieties.
“The message is not very hidden. It is pretty clear and obvious. But what is not obvious is the fear I have that the piece will be censored or deleted after someone complains,” RUN says.
“This of course happens all the time and is not a big deal. But after this election I feel all the social places and artistic spaces that are made by people and not by associations or corporate brands will be soon taken away.”
There is no evidence to suggest the new government will crack down on street art. Graffiti removal is, after all, the responsibility of councils rather than central government.
But could a surprise by-product of the election be a flourishing of political art? For street artist RUN the writing – or the paint at least – is on the wall.
Patti Smith at Field Day. Photograph: Carolina Faruolo
Tights were joyfully stripped from sun-starved legs, sleeves rolled up and dungarees donned as a week-long smudgy cloud hanging over East London made way for glorious blue sky to welcome Field Day to Victoria Park.
Acoustic treats greeted punters as they flowed into the festival to the pacey parp of trumpets and trombones from local lads Hackney Colliery Band, kicking things off on the main stage. They were later followed by father and son duo Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté from Mali, playing the kora – a traditional West African instrument.
Glamorous hordes swanned by as a couple lay face down on the grass near the stage, their cheeks pressed against a cling-wrapped copy of Saturday’s Guardian, the sound of the world’s best harp players the perfect lullaby for a quick power-nap.
So far, so sedate. But as the sun began to set as dancing feet tossed dust into the air. Some reckless rapping from teenage hip-hop trio RatKing, who have been touring with Run the Jewels higher up on the Field day bill, got bodies shifting on the i-D Mix stage.
Ratking (not to be confused with Rat Boy, another Field Day act). Photograph: Ella Jessel
Sneaking under the awnings of the Shacklewell Arms tent came the bewitching vocals of Tei Shi, moniker of New York-based but Bogota-begot singer/songwriter Valerie Teicher. Her atmospheric electronic R&B left the crowd shouting for more.
But as with previous years, bigger acts seemed to struggle with sound. In the Crack tent, Chet Faker could hardly be heard, though the crowd seemed more than happy to sing blithely along to ‘No Diggedy’ all the same.
Punters crammed the main outdoor stage eager to hear Caribou – the perfect choice for the headline slot. But the sound on the Eat Your Own Ears stage was also weak. “I feel like I’m watching this on TV”, one chap said to his friend, staring glumly up at the video screens beaming images of crowd-surfers and girls hoisted on shoulders.
Sunday
If Saturday night was all right for partying, then Field Day Sunday put music firmly back in focus. A more seasoned festival crowd gathered to see the likes of Patti Smith, Ride and Mac Demarco on the main stage, with the weather gods once again looking kindly on proceedings.
Feeling disorientated in your local park by the array of tents, stalls and stages is a strange sensation at first, though wandering between them all to discover new acts whilst grazing on some of the stellar street food offerings is no bad thing.
Gulf were an early find, a psychedelic guitar-pop group from Liverpool playing to a modest crowd in the Moth Club tent. For a new band, festivals are like a shop window, a place to find new fans, and Gulf’s lilting, melancholic melodies and full-throttle guitars are sure to have won them friends.
Walking between stages it was surprisingly easy to be distracted by the sight of adults sack-racing, or in the words of the bawdy announcer, showing “athletic prowess in the sack”. Silly but actually rather fun, the ‘Village Mentality’ area is an enduring feature of Field Day that makes it stand out from its festival brethren.
Napping: A couple snooze while revellers flit between the bands. Photograph: Ella Jessel
Packing out the Verity tent were Leopold and His Fiction, who wowed the afternoon crowd with a high tempo set of vintage rock, complete with singing drummer. “This song is about Detroit,” declared frontman Daniel James, the crowd roaring their approval. “Has anyone ever been to Detroit?” he followed up, to a more muted response – though enthusiasm for this all-American blend of Detroit rock and soul was well placed.
In an early evening slot, Patti Smith and band played Horses in full, with punk poet Smith showing she’s lost none of her energy or stage presence in the 40 years since the album was released. From the snarled opening line of “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” it was clear Smith meant business.
Smith railed against governments and corporations and implored everyone to be free, to whoops and cheers. By the end, audience members were calling out the names of lost loved ones during an emotional rendition of ‘Elegie’, dedicated to all those people “who we have loved and are no longer with us”.
Those who left after Patti Smith must have felt there was no room for improvement, but the remaining faithful were rewarded with a serene set from headliners Ride. Playing songs from across their four albums and various EPs, the reformed cult act and original ‘shoegazers’ have lost none of their intensity, their guitar ‘wall of sound’ thankfully still intact.
With cruel punctuality the curfew was reached. Happy, sunburnt and a little worse for wear the crowd filed out, leaving only glimpses of grass under a carpet of plastic cups, broken sunglasses and crushed cans of Red Stripe.
Could the sound have been better? Probably. But Field Day has all the elements for a great party and emerged with its reputation for devising an eclectic line-up unscathed, though a few decibels short of fever pitch.
