The Wick Curiosity Shop returns for another year at the Hackney Wick Festival, come and explore and contribute to the curiosities of Hackney Wick, take part in a local WICK quiz, listen to some Hackney Wick tunes and view the shops latest products and photo booth!
Over the summer The Wick Curiosity Shop has been working closely with the 'East London Lives 2012' digital archive project. It will have one of its first public outings at the festival with the Wick Curiosity Shop,giving you an opportunity to look at some of the research with local people about the area- come meet the people behind the project and find out more!

Posted in Blog on September 7, 2009 13:25 by Polly Brannan

On Sunday 12th July the Wick Curiosity Shop takes trip down to Leabank Square in the heart of the wick!

It joins Leabank Clean up day orgaised by local resident Sona, the porch invites local residents to stop by the shop for a rest and an opportunity to listen to songs about the Wick, have a chance to win a LTD edition calender made by Wick shop keepers all about the Wick, residents will also have the chance to make a contribtion to the shop by making a Leabnank poster and having their photographs taken!

It's also an opportunity to find out about the project ‘East London Lives 2012’ digital archive’ that the Wick Curiosity Shop is involved with which launches this summer!

Please join us from 1PM on Leabank Square!

Posted in Blog on July 7, 2009 12:12 by Polly Brannan

The Wick Curiosity Shop was introduced to a new audience and we sold a few more calendars at the 'Salon de Refuses Olympique - Alternative Legacies' held at Elevator Gallery in Hackney Wick. A pdf of the programme of presentations at the event will soon be available to download here.

October 2008’s ‘ Salon de Refuses Olympique’ as part of TINAG Festival proved to be a very interesting affair and Hilary Powell was invited by MUF architects to reconvene and expand the session to enable visiting architecture students from Yale a chance to enter into both the official and unofficial attitudes to the Olympic development.
This event was the latest manifestation of what began as the [space] initiated ‘Olympic Artist Forum’ - an evening of presentations and discussion exploring creative responses to the changing London 2012 Olympic site and surrounding regeneration zone. The salon gives voice to those operating alongside official cultural programming and offering a more critical stance - from outright rejection of the ‘Olympic story’ to ironic critique and adaptive actions. Primarily this salon aims to address practices that attempt to engage audiences and participants with the Olympic-led regeneration and changes happening in East London in the run-up to 2012 in a thought provoking way and creative way. The event featured short presentations of work by participants using their vision and visuals as prompts to engage with key questions raised within the salon, most specifically in this case, alternative legacies and what this could mean.
Short presentations of work by:
Hilary Powell
Emma Dwyer MOLAS
Stephen Cornford
Tessa Garland
Gesche Wuerfel
Wick Curiosity Shop
Julika Gittner and Jon Purnell with their project ‘From the Picturesque to the Demolished’ centred on the demolition of Angel Cottage, Stratford.
Jean-Francois Prost with Adaptive Actions
Thomas Pausz working on a project with Manor Garden Allotments

We were really happy to meet Simon and Cherie of Elevator Gallery and build new and exciting links in Hackney Wick

Thanks to Joanna Hughes from Mother Studios for taking the photographs of Hilary Powell's film 'The Games' screening and Jean-Francois Prost's presentation.

Posted in Blog on February 5, 2009 17:14 by Hilary Powell

The Wick Curiosity Shop 2009 Calendar is a limited edition of collages based on Hackney Wick’s past, present and future. It was made by Polly Brannan from public works and Hilary Powell from Optimistic Productions. You can see more of it in the shop.

You can purchase a copy for £10 by e-mailing us (postage not included)

Posted in Blog on January 24, 2009 17:50 by Hilary Powell

We had a great outing with the shop at the Hackney Wick 2012 Community meeting. Peter Marshall kindly brought along some wonderful photographs of the lea valley in the 1980's which we'll be putting in the shop. Our Hackney Wick Song went down a treat and will is available here now. We'll be doing more songs and hope for one to include from the local police community officers! James Robertshaw came and showed his local photographs and we met Penny Clift whose project 'The Big Blue Fence' we'll also be linking to in the shop. Steve Dowding from Hackney Marshes users group and Games Monitor donated some 'no homes, no games' badges and people enjoyed sampling the traditional 'clarnico' cream mints that the shop is constantly supplied with.

Posted in Blog on January 24, 2009 17:39 by Hilary Powell

The Wick Curiosity Shop will be havning another local outing as part of the Hackney Wick 2012 Community Meeting 3-7 (meeting goes on until 8.30pm) thursday 22nd January 2009 in the Hackney Wick Community Centre, The Old Baths, 80 Eastway, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5JH

We'll be showcasing shop contents including film screening and are keen to hear and collect more local stories, objects and songs. We 'll be launching and selling the Wick Curiosity Shop 2009 calendar and also a new Hackney Wick Song!

Posted in Blog on January 18, 2009 16:28 by Hilary Powell

The Wick Curiosity Shop had another outing at the Building Exploratory with the Senior Bee's 'Wild Christmas Party' hosted by Pudding Mill River:Purveyors of Sporting Spirits and Foodstuffs. This was a follow up to the 'Walk on the Wild Side of the Wick' exploring Hackney Wick and the Greenway with the Senior Bee's in September. Hilary presented her film ' The Games' and other creative work going on around the fringes of the Olympic site before opening up the Wick Curiosity Shop website and exploring it on the (quite) big screen. Plenty of fascinating new information and stories emerged immediately from those like Graham who had actually worked in the Lesney Matchbox toy factory and Bella and Richard who live in Hackney Wick - we'll be updating the shop asap accordingly and hope for more links and stories to come.

The event was accompanied by Pudding Mill River's popular Bow Back blackberry crumble cake and the first chance of the season to sample the ultimate 'Olympic Spirit' in the form of Sloe Gin made from Hackney Marsh sloes. Tex put it well by saying 'a bird cannot fly with one wing....' - after some confusion this led to a second shot of the strong stuff all round!

The Senior Building Exploratory Explorers are a very active group meeting regularly to explore the built environment and all the issues this involves. Karen Elmes (Lifelong Learning Officer) runs the sessions and Ruth Clarke was on hand to introduce plans for 2009 and the O Space project exploring sporting buildings and history with particular emphasis on the Olympic development. Dan Edelstyn of Optimistic Productions was filming as part of a film being made for the Building Exploratory documenting their great exhibition and activities before they move location in the New Year and Optimistic Productions are also pleased to be working on the film for O Space in the coming year.

Posted in Blog on December 6, 2008 10:52 by Hilary Powell

As part of a series of films on the East End waterways German ARD TV have been exploring the area and talking to various locals about the changes taking place in the area. After hearing about the recent 'Salon de Refuses Olympique' they invited us to guide them up onto the Greenway for a chat in front of the vista of construction taking place.

Posted in Blog on November 10, 2008 15:23 by Hilary Powell

Roving reporters from the Hackney Citizen visited the Wick Curiosity Shop at Hackney Wick Festival and Pudding Mill River's CEO Professor Kronos Adam made a suprise appearance in this issue 2 (autumn 2008) amid an article on the Cultural Olympiad.

Posted in Blog on November 10, 2008 15:16 by Hilary Powell

Fiona from [Space] organised a feedback meeting at the Senior Citizens Club to look back on the Festival and sound out where it should go next and what to consider for the coming years. It was really good to see a lot of people turning up and hearing all the different perspectives. Sadly I had to leave early as it was just getting into the nitty gritty of it all.

Looking forward to see the Hackney Wick Festival in the coming years.

Posted in Blog on October 18, 2008 20:13 by Andreas Lang