Hackney Wick artists to ‘take over’ Victoria and Albert Museum

Hackney Wick artist Sweet Toof is to come to the V&A later this month

Hackney Wick’s emerging and established artistic community are to take over the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of its Friday Late programme on 28 February.

Following last year’s Dalston takeover, Friday Late curator Ruth Lie says the museum plans to recreate the spirit of Hackney Wick’s arts scene and those within it who “live quiet hermit lifestyles” though retain a strong sense of community. She says the museum is looking to transpose to Kensington “the atmosphere and vibrancy of the place and the hiddenness of the spaces used to live and work”.

The focus will primarily be on art projects linked to the current architecture of Hackney Wick and the speculative development plans which threaten to change the community. Lie is confident that “the museum, which spatially lends itself being quite a maze, encourages the discovery of unknown spaces”.

Street artist Sweet Toof, known for his trademark skeletal figures with bright pink gums and outsized teeth, is one of the artists known to be taking part, as well as  architect Andreas Lang and artist Rebecca Feiner from R-Urban, who will be addressing the issue of the Wick’s DIY culture. With the Wick Curiosity Shop, a small scale archive and cultural space, they intend to demonstrate how self-built culture adds monetary value to an area that Feiner describes as a “forgotten unregulated place with raves and graffiti that were not officially sanctioned in any way but that now is moving in a highly regulated way”.

Feiner sees the V&A takeover as an opportunity to put “Hackney Wick on the map again but this time in a different way than the Olympics. It is supposed to be a celebration of the neighbourhood, of its music, arts, design and architecture.”

Lie wants the occasion to be about bringing East Londoners to to the west side of the city and to introduce Hackney Wick to a new audience. Hackney Wick, she says, is “teetering on the brink of being taken over by developers. The area is changing and becoming gentrified, but at the moment it is sticking to its guns. It is a good time to celebrate what is there.”

Friday Late is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL from Friday 28 February from 18.30 to 22.00.