Weekend to Remember: AHRC-Connected Communities and London Festival of Architecture at Hackney Wick & Fish Island

Hydrocitizenship Project celebrated the 10th anniversary festival of AHRC-Connected Communities and London Festival of Architecture at Hackney Wick & Fish Island on the 26-28 June 2015. Diverse events, exhibitions, workshops and talks took place including Middlesex University exhibition of Interior Architecture & Design student schemes at Hub 67, Lee Valley Hydrocitizenship Project cultural mapping outside Hackney Pearl, Creative Factories exhibition at See Studio, Wick Session on community land trust at Stour Space, screening of the Long Good Friday film at the Mother Gallery, DEN-City 1 curated by Rebecca Feiner at Forman's Yard, Open Studios and many more. 

Over 2000 people visited the Festival area and got involved in different activities during the weekend. A brief visitor survey has been undertaken during the festival weekend. The results show that 37% of the participants were visiting HW&FI area for the first time, 44% visit the area regularly and the rest live/work in HW&FI area. Majority of the participants were in the age group of 25-44. While visitors mainly experienced most of festival activities, Hackney Wicked Open studios, the Architecture Exhibition, DEN-City and the Creative Factories Exhibition were the most visited ones. Majority of the participants have heard about the festival via word of month or festival flyers and posters and 56% mentioned that their experience of the festival was very good.

Hydrocitizenship project outdoor stall was one of the liveliest areas of the festival. Over 40 people took part in the cultural mapping study which aimed to make creative contributions to the ways citizens and communities live with each other and their environment in relation to water. Detailed analysis and results report will be available on our website soon. Some preliminary analysis is available below. Also the posters explaining the Hydrocitizenship project were presented during the festival and they are still on display at the Hub 67 in Hackney Wick (the posters are available at the Documents). You can find more pictures from the festival in the Gallery.