Past exhibitions
Capturing Play 26 July to mid Sept 2006
All children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate. Play is a biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development of individuals.
Hackney Play Association (HPA) runs an Inclusive Play Project that allows physically and mentally disabled children uninhibited access to the borough’s most challenging and rewarding local play areas. Standard staffing levels at play sites are often not sufficient to cater for children that need one-to-one support. The Inclusive Play Project works by providing each child with a support playworker responsible for their wellbeing, thereby giving children who would not normally be able to access these play sites, the space and freedom to play.
To celebrate the success of HPA’s Inclusive Play Project, more than 30 children and young people took part in a photography project aimed at capturing Inclusive Play in action. The project, which ran during the Easter half-term holidays, saw children and young people, equipped with a camera each, snapping photos of their friends and playworkers at the Laburnum Boat Club and three of Hackney’s favourite adventure playgrounds: Evergreen, KIDS and SWAPA. Led by photographer and playworker Lucy Jo Brown, the project was created to give children and young people the opportunity to capture Inclusive Play from their own perspective by taking photos of what the play spaces meant to them. The children and young people also expressed their feelings regarding inclusion at their playgrounds via audio recordings, presented here.
This project clearly demonstrates the commitment of all those involved in the Inclusive Play Project and how the inclusion of disabled children and young people is very much at the heart of the boat club and the adventure playgrounds. See the photographs at Hackney Museum from 26th July.
This project was made possible with support from Capital Radio’s Children in Need and The Hackney Children’s Fund Partnership.
One Spirit 20 September to 18 November 2006
One Spirit is a music and skills development project for young offenders and those at risk aged 13 -18 years of age. The project works with Gospel Rn’B and also includes readings, lyrics and poetry from a group of inmates at America’s San Quentin state prison. Tutors works with young people to develop original song material based on a variety of offending related issues and discussion themes. Find out more in the One Spirit exhibition at Hackney Museum.
Chinese Culture and Roots 4 April to end of May 2006
This exhibition celebrates the Chinese Heritage and Young Roots project. This provides opportunities for Hackney's young Chinese community to investigate their rich heritage. For many it's a chance to take part in celebrations rarely seen outside China.
I Love Hackney 15 November to 20 February 2006
I Love Hackney is Hackney Museum’s exciting new exhibition celebrating our Borough and the people who live and work here.
It features 11 local people and why they feel passionately about Hackney. To illustrate their feelings each person has chosen an item from the Museum’s collection, previously unseen by the public.
At Hackney Museum you’ll be able to discover the objects participants have chosen; tell your stories and ideas in the mini Routemaster bus and watch a specially commissioned film featuring local people sharing what they love about living and working in Hackney.
Hackney’s Mayor Jules Pipe said: ‘Hackney is a place of contrasts and contradictions. It is exciting, challenging, pretty, grand, humble, edgy, historical and bursting with creativity and energy. I Hackney puts our borough’s unique character, culture and heritage into the spotlight
Sophie Perkins of Hackney Museum, said: ‘We at the Museum decided to tell Hackney’s real story by inviting people who live or work to here tell us what they love about the borough. We spoke to a variety of people from a signwriter, to an African arts performer to a policeman to a poet.’
Here are some comments from participants in I Love Hackney:
'Hackney is fast'- Adisa, verbaliser and performance poet
'What people sometimes miss about (Hackney) is that some of the best things by any standards are here. They imagine that the best things need to be in Kensington or Hampstead. The lamb I have bought in the shop on Ridley Road...you could schlep all the way to Selfridges and not get anything as good' - Michael Rosen, author and broadcaster
'In Hackney, there are lots of immediate touches with the past and lots of real, great touches with the future' - Brian Walker, signwriter and performer
'You can (walk) across Hackney keeping almost completely to open spaces which is a pretty powerful thing to say about a place in London' Anne Woollett , Member of the Hackney Marsh Users Group
'I like doing what I do in Hackney. Everyone wants to know, they have a thirst for knowledge' - Ngozi Headley - Fulani Performer of African arts and culture
Page updated: 17 Jan 2008