The 2024 Radical History Faction programme will be unleashed in the near future. Until then, here are some other Hackney happenings you may be interested in:
Hackney Art Activism Festival 27 April – 6 May
“A 10 day sound + visual art festival exploring community resistance to policing in Hackney from 1980s to today.
Venues + Locations: Gillett Square, The Vortex, C.L.R. James Library, Hackney Archives, The RIO + Online.”
https://reelrebelsradio.com/if-mi-nuh-laugh-mi-cry-hackney-art-activism-festival
One of the reasons this site started was the lack of information available about community responses to corrupt, racist and violent policing in Hackney in the eighties and nineties, specifically the amazing work done by Hackney Community Defence Association.
It looks like a number of people who were active in HCDA are involved with this event. There are lots of great things in the programme, but everyone should go to the free exhibitions at Hackney Archives and Gillett Square.
Some good times to visit might be the We Remember HCDA celebration and vigil at 2pm-8pm on Saturday 27th April and the Archiving and Legacy event with speakers from HCDA at 1pm to 4pm on Sunday 28th April.
Gillett Square has specifically been chosen because of its proximity to Bradbury Street, which was home to the HCDA HQ, the Colin Roach Centre – as well as number of other co-operatives. The square is not immune to local pressures and struggles and an anti-gentrification protest was held there in 2006. Since then it has been a contested space, being a cornerstone of “radical black history” and also, more ominously, the focus of an award winning redevelopment by architects. Clearly the festival is squarely in the tradition of the former…
Hackney History Festival 10th-12th May
Including: Susan Doe on Hackney’s Suffragettes, Breda Corish on how the campaign for Home Rule in Ireland played out in Hackney, Stephen May on the weeks Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg spent in Hackney in 1907 and a Black History Walks tour of Dalston.
Talks are mainly £3 or free.
The venues also have their own radical histories:
- Sutton House was rescued from dereliction by squatters in the 1980s and became a lively social centre and gig venue.
- Hackney Archives is hosted in one of the towers around the Dalston Square redevelopment which replaced Dalston Theatre/The Four Aces/Labyrynth.
- The Museum of the Home, was formerly the Geffrye Museum and the site of recent protests because of their statue of slave trader Robert Geffrye, which the government prevented them from removing.
Hackney Museum
Finally, I should really get along to the museum and check these exhibitions out:
The Radical History of Hackney 