Imagine if you were given a camera and asked to document your day by taking photos every hour. What would it look like? This is what was asked of 40 residents from the Regents Estate in London Fields who were given disposable cameras and asked to document their lives as part of a new project hoping to make art accessible for everyday people.
Opening on 15 March, The Regents Estate and AIRE Community Photography Exhibition is the latest event to be held at Workshop44, an empty shop turned creative arts space.
Workshop44 opened at 44 Marlborough Avenue on the Regents Estate in September and has since played host to a number of workshops, pop-up exhibitions and gigs, installations and performance events, all designed with local people in mind.
The people behind the community arts project are Rolemop, a contemporary live arts and audio-visual production company with a self-proclaimed passion for telling stories.
Kerri McLean, Rolemop’s artistic director, said: “The space here is fantastic. The large glass-fronted shop has invited plenty of interest from the neighbourhood, with local residents of all ages popping in to learn more about what we’re up to.
“We’ve had really good feedback from people on the Estate and we hope that Workshop44 will eventually become a permanent fixture here.”
Rolemop is leasing the building from Hackney Council as part of the Art in Empty Spaces (AIES) initiative, which aims to transform abandoned properties for the benefit of local communities.
A spokesperson for the AEIS scheme said: “The programme is designed to provide temporary activities that will be useful and meaningful to Hackney’s residents and visitors.
“Our ambition is to extend the project to provide a platform for local artists utilising empty commercial space across the borough.”
Spring will see the introduction of the Broken Loops Community project to Workshop44, a community-led scheme for unemployed people that offers help with tackling job interviews through innovative and interactive exercises.
Voices Through the Estates, an audio project exploring Hackney’s history through the eyes of local people, will launch in the summer.
Kerri added: “We want to learn more about local people, their lives, and how they feel about their environment and then use this to develop a practical arts programme that will involve, educate and benefit the community in which we work.”
