Hackney WickED festival cancelled

Hackney WickED festival cancelled

21 May, 2012
by: Spoonfed Arts Team

It's true - no Hackney WickED festival for 2012 :(

Hackney WickED will not take place in 2012. The annual arts festival that emerged to champion the artists of Hackney Wick has been cancelled, and in its place the Hackney WickED Collective will be helping with a year-long programme of exhibitions, film screenings, open studios, music and 'development'.

Founded back in 2008, Hackney WickED quickly established itself as one of the most anarchically entertaining events on the London art calendar. With all manner of exhibitions, events, parties, open studios and oddball fun and games taking place across three days each summer, Hackney WickED drew the attention of the capital to this strange, hidden, once-industrial corner of London. Apparently Hackney Wick is home to more artists per capita than anywhere else in the world, and with the 2012 Olympics changing East London forever, the last few years have been fascinating ones for the Wick, and its artists.

But the festival's short history has not been without a degree of controversy. In 2009, three of the festival's original founders – Ingrid Z of The Residence and Decima's David C West and Alex Chappel –  all departed, arguing that it was moving too far from its original roots. That Hackney WickED's partners and sponsors currently include the Olympic Park Legacy Company, the councillor-heavy Leaside Regeneration, and the Arts Council-funded CREATE suggests perhaps that it no longer champions the alternative or the transgressive in quite the same way.

On the news that there is to be no festival for 2012, Hackney WickEd co-founder Alex Chappel told Spoonfed that it had become “a free-for-all, with no quality control or vision, just one massive 'open studio'”. He was critical of the organisation's “capitalist bureaucrats” and blamed their failed attempts to cosy up to the Olympic committee for the lack of a festival this year. “There's a reason we walked away from it,” he added.

However, the organisers cited "opposition from local councils and the police" for the lack of a 2012 festival. They told Spoonfed: "It was made clear that during the London 2012 Games it would not be possible for Hackney WickED to obtain the necessary TEN licenses which were required to run the festival; and should we wish to continue it was necessary to build in infrastructure and security provision, to the cost of around £100,000."

"It is unfortunate that grassroots events such as Hackney WickED have not been supported as part of the Cultural Olympiad. It really has been a victim of its own success," they added, echoing fears voiced by Spoonfed back in 2010.

Read Spoonfed's interviews with Hackney Wicked's organisers, 2008 & 2009.
Read Spoonfed's reviews of Hackney Wicked, 2008 & 2011.

Read more on Hackney Wicked's programme of events for 2012. 

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Spoonfed Arts Team