Voices East London

From the Huguenots in the seventeenth century, Irish silk weavers in the late 1700s and East European Jews at the turn of the twentieth century through to recent immigrants from South-east Asia, East London has been shaped by a multicultural reality closely linked to a unique spirit of creative enterprise. Over the last thirty years in particular, the area has been transformed from a crumbling no-go area on the fringe of the nation’s capital into a cluster of hip neighbourhoods buzzing with creative energy where a wide range of communities have come together.

Voices East London connects the dots around the creative perspectives that make the area unique while providing colourful glimpses into its past by means of dynamic interviews with eighty of the area’s leading movers and shakers. Among them are such artists, designers and cultural leaders as Gilbert & George, Sue Webster, Langlands & Bell, Charles Saumarez Smith, Iwona Blazwick, Maureen Paley, Viktor Wynd, Sandra Esquilant, David Waddington and Pablo Flack.

Brimming with striking new photography and engaging insights into a distinctive milieu, Voices East London demonstrates that the area has well and truly moved beyond its old Dickensian aura.