Haggerston - Behind closed doors...

On the 1st March 2015, I visited Haggerston for the first time, in order to embrace the supposed spontaneity of immersive theatre with a friend.  Unlike other areas, I have visited as part of the L.O.P., the area left me slightly underwhelmed.  But as I have long since determined, it's not the place that failed to reveal its treasures to me but the fact that I was not receptive to the details that are always there.  There is normally something to be gained by simply being in the moment but the moment I was in had past.  I was in a strange mood.

In order to waste time until it was time to enter the venue where the immersive theatre production was due to take place, I wandered around and as I regularly experience, I discovered a green space.  This offered a sense of respite from the strangeness of Haggerston with its long streets and seemingly never ending building merchants.  Stonebridge Gardens was located just behind the Haggerston Overground Station.

Something about trees.  Gnarled and knotted yet alive.

Strange markings on the ground, almost a secret landing site for UFOs.  Well, really markings on a football pitch, but I prefer my version.

Goalposts fascinate me.  I think it's the lines and the bent frames created from years of play.

Goalpost in Stonebridge Gardens looking towards the church in the distance.

I don't understand why but I am still fascinated by churches.  They seem to represent a demarcation point between some point in my past and the future.  My current agnosticism may explain the love of religious iconography or simply the ornate architecture.  I only looked at the church from a distance but that offered some degree of solace.

Something peculiar about the juxtaposition of nature and the church in the background.  The tree seems to remind me of a particularly nasty insect.  The cross a force for good, however innocuous it seems at first sight.

All Saint's Church in Haggerston.

Sign for All Saint's Church, promising that 'All are welcome'.

I left Stonebridge Gardens and walked around the area heading to the King's Head Members Club on Kingsland Road where the 'Secret Theatre' were soon to be performing.  It was an old pub, tatty on the outside and a codeword was required to gain entry but still too early, so I continued to walk.  I realised how close Hoxton was.  I saw Regent's Canal in the distance but I was not in the mood to head towards water (in direct opposition to my usual urge).  I was particularly taken by a tattoo parlour.  Something about the darkness and potential for creativity.

Tattoo parlour's sign.

Seeing a chair like this always reminds me of Sweeney Todd.  Barred windows.  More crosses.

Returning for the last time to the King's Head Members Club, I saw some brilliant street art on the side of the old pub and the little courtyard adjacent to it.

A meeting of great minds?

Sometimes, I wonder whether the meanings conveyed in these images are of more cultural significance than a year's worth of inane television programmes?

Woman in a bottle marked Dork.

This image reminded me of the comic, 'Black Hole'.  I love the idea of melting people.  A waxen union.

Pressing the buzzer and finally being admitted to the King's Head Members Club once the password was given, we were led into the bar area.  Stuffed animals scattered around and a decor reminding me of the twisted imperialist dreams of the early colonialists.  My friend arrived, we talked and we were accosted by the staff of this exclusive establishment, explaining how outside of performances it was a private members club, we might like to join.  No secret handshakes or symbolic exchanges just a simple momentary transaction to join this establishment.  We put on our masks.  The performance began with a blood drenched guy explaining how he had been told to do it.  We were then privy to a performance piece that borrowed liberally from 'Seven' as we were led around the venue and saw people in various states of life, as the representatives of law and order, desperately tried to find the culprit.  A theological morality play without the content.  The building and its peculiar contents such as a stuffed polar bear either real or a copy were the highlights of the piece.  I half remember a cross hanging from the mouth of the polar bear.  Some days, you have to step back and realise that the point of the experience can simply be the repetition of an image.  It doesn't have to be anything more profound than that.

I left the venue with my friend and said my goodbye to Haggerston.  There is possibly more to experience there but not yet.

The Haggerston Overground sign.

                                             Barry Watt - 14th March 2015.

Afterword.

Secret Theatre are a theatre group that seem to have the right motives.  I just wish that the production had been more original.  Please see the link before for more information about them.

http://www.secrettheatrelondon.com/about.html

The King's Head Members Club is located in Kingsland Road and here's their website if you wish to become a member:

http://www.thekingshead-london.com/

Sweeney Todd, the so-called 'Demon Barber of Fleet Street'.  Possibly an urban legend, although anyone with any interest in London and its past will have bumped into him in the darker recesses of libraries and repeatedly throughout popular culture.

'Black Hole' was written by Charles Burns and is published as a hardcover graphic novel by Jonathan Cape in the UK.  It's a beautiful exploration of the horrific repercussions of the spread of a sexual infection that causes transformations.  It also explores the experiences of being a teenager in the 70s.

'Seven' was a very successful psychological film released in 1995.  Clearly, a great influence on the Secret Theatre performance.  It has one of the most memorable endings from any film released in the last thirty years.  Currently available on DVD and Blu Ray from Warner Home Video.

                                                                                                                               BW.

     

 

Whitechapel - Of Boxes, Squares and Blood.

Today, as a shadowy male or female figure once did, I stalked the streets of Whitechapel (slightly).  I avoided visiting the sites associated with Jack the Ripper, although s/he pervades the streets of East London.  A spectral vulture feeding on the culture of the area, spewing forth ideas and indirectly giving a name to a hairdressers, Jack the Clipper!

I began my journeys at the Whitechapel Gallery, where I attended the 'Adventures of the Black Square' exhibition.  This exhibition featured numerous works including one of Malevich's 'Black Quadrilateral' paintings, which helped to kick start a branch of abstract act, concerned with depicting the world through shapes, particularly squares and also lines.  The exhibition  ranged from 1915 to the present day and contained an eclectic mix of works.  My mind oddly not engaging with lots of the works.  Although, occasionally, I found myself responding in slightly interesting ways to compositions and installations.  One video installation involved coloured blocks moving across the foreground of the screen in different directions and the background contained various details of everyday life.  I remained entranced until I could finally determine whether the blocks would merge or crash with each other.  The blocks overlapped.  I was glad they did not crash.  I worried about the damage such a collision would cause to their integral form.

I found the Whitechapel Gallery a fascinating space.  Some of the galleries in the space were like large warehouse spaces.  Brick walls punctuated by screens representing more spaces.  Environments captured via the means of photography and rapidly cut between.  In fact, the building as a whole struck me as being no more coherent than a series of jigsaw pieces thrown in the air and allowed to fall as they chose.  Not a bad thing when you get used to visiting galleries that are clinically organised.  One particular series of works were presented in a room which had variable lighting.  I was amazed to see a member of staff sitting in the room, whilst music played.  To sit in what must feel like a meditative state for any length of time, having the tranquillity or madness interrupted by visitors must be difficult.

 

Cupids guard the Whitechapel Gallery.

 

 

Well, free up to a point unless you visit the paid exhibitions.

 

 

I left the Whitechapel Gallery and went for a little walk around the area.  For some reason, I found myself immediately drawn to a park.  I entered the park and was amazed to see lots of bits of flooring and bizarre relics.  I was reminded of alters (as it turns out rightly so).

 

 

 

The entrance to Altab Ali Park, originally known as St. Mary's Park.  It was renamed to remember a man who was murdered in Adler Street in 1978.

 

 

Altab Ali Park contains the remains of St. Mary Matfelon, a 14th Century white chapel and I believe other churches that have been build on the site through the centuries.  So by accident, I stumbled on the origins of Whitechapel.  It certainly feels like an area of positive energies in its current manifestation, a place of rest and unity.

 

 

 

Lovely mosaic tiles, in conjunction with nature.

 

An adult playground for spiritualists and pacifists.

 

If anyone can explain the meaning of this diagram, I would be very grateful for an interpretation.  It looks like a map or an attempt to illustrate the positioning of celestial bodies.

 

After leaving the park, I continued my journey around Whitechapel and its vicinities.  I was determined to visit Fournier Street (strictly speaking not Whitechapel but as I have discovered, it is hard to ascertain where one section of East London starts and another ends).  Fournier Street located in Spitalfields still contains a number of 18th Century houses.  It's like walking into a Dickens' novel, only dirtier and weirder.  Prior to entering the street, I was accosted by a cyclist who scrounged money from me to get a taxi to go to Homerton Hospital.  He had a huge gash on his arm.  Real or fake to encourage gullible people to part with their cash?  Doesn't matter, I need some positive karma.

 

 

Fournier Street.  The trend for replacement continues apace but not removal.  The original sign (or one of them hides beneath the pretender to modernity.

 

Fournier Street.  A picture postcard of a past still clung to with reverence.

 

Creative window display in Fournier Street.

 

Whilst in Whitechapel, I was impressed by the eclectic range of eateries adorning the roads and even more so by the street art and other creative endeavours including the protest posters.

 

 

 

Just struck me as striking. 

 

I guess it's a poster advertising an artist's work but as is the case in East London, things like this crop up all over the place.  Grotty building sites are home to unique art.

 

I was interested in this with its reference to 'aggressive marketing strategies'.  I believe it may be connected to the above artist or group, although this has been torn creating a new work of art.

 

An Anarchist group expressing their solidarity with their captured colleagues in Spain.  I was attracted by its style and the image of the bird and the flowers.  The roots surrounding the Anarchist's logo also seem strangely out of time.

 

Whilst I headed back to Whitechapel Station, I took photos of objects and shapes that interested me.  I feel that capturing a sense of space is as much about exploring those things that have an emotional impact upon you as taking photos of local attractions.

 

 

Chimney, possibly part of the Royal London Hospital.  This reminded me of the Serpent from the Garden of Eden for some reason, possibly wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

 

Closer image of the Serpent and Tree.

 

One of the buildings that form the Royal London Hospital.  This reminded me of Mondrian's paintings.

 

Another photo of the Royal London Hospital.  I was entranced by the plastic flurries and barbed wire.  A more accurate summation of life in the 21st Century I couldn't possibly hope to find.

 

Just a local Angel looking for a place to stay.

 

The clue is in the name.

 

I finished my journey at the Whitechapel Overground Station (as if you recall, that's what the L.O.P. is all about.  There was an amusing moment when I looked up and saw both the Underground and Overground signs, but you may have to sing the two words to understand my reference.

 

The Whitechapel Overground sign.

 

                                                                 Barry Watt - 7th February 2015.

 

Afterword