This has been a week of simultaneous celebration and destruction for Hackney. Shakespeare launched his career in Shoreditch, as lively in the 16th century as it is in the 21st. Residents have loved, censured and explored their corner of London during this week’s East festival. News editor Oliver Shah buys into a unique, co-op economy at Petticoat Lane market while arts correspondent Morwenna Coniam gets cosy with Birds of a Feather star Linda Robson. I accompanied the Hackney branch of the London Cycling Campaign on a ten mile tour of the borough’s musical and theatrical venues.
But who licenses creativity? Not sanctioned by any official programmes, not blessed by Boris Johnson’s beaming face, some of Hackney’s most hard-hitting art is being obliterated.
Efforts to clean up the borough for 2012 are commendable, but it is small-minded bureaucracy which will wipe Banksy’s latest masterpiece from Gillett Square. The elusive graffiti artist’s decision to stay well away from commercial arts has placed him on the same rung as a local yob with a can of spray-paint in the eyes of Hackney Council.
As many people will look at, discuss and participate in Banksy’s new work as will go to the East festival. Hackney cannot be taken seriously as a creative hotspot when it seeks to sanitise its art forms. ‘Try something different!’ says the East festival programme. An excellent idea, but the best art permeates without exhorting. No self-publicising for Banksy, who lets the public do the talking for him. It’s a shame the council would stifle that debate.
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