Underline I & II (at Beyond Beck Road)

Beyond Beck Road (2022, 2023, a third iteration is planned for 2024) seeks to reimagine and activate the street, addressing ideas of community (in all its forms) through creative intervention and communal participation. Beck Road is a terraced street in the heart of Hackney with a distinct history- originally a Victorian terrace built for workers, by the 1970s these houses had become artist squats, now the street is representative of the evolving nature of London’s east end and its ‘redevelopment’. The street’s history and architectural configuration inspired the events’ form, reiterating the ‘value of heritage as a resource’. The event sort to conceptualise the street through performative intervention and interaction. In the contested social environment shared space (all that is not privately owned) become communal points of potential engagement and creative departure. Beyond Beck Road’s initiatives (the individual contributions, projects and workshops) reflected the residents’ interests and practices, and the event brought them to the collective fore. The participating artists were all connected to the street or lived in the borough and included young (many were local school children), emerging and established makers (for example, John Smith and Guy Sherwin). For the event the road was closed, which allowed workshops to be freely convened and artworks to be displayed along its entirety. Also, its two sets of studios were opened, and some residents allowed artworks to be located in their homes. All of which formed a street ‘gallery’, connecting domestic and public space, individual and communal appreciation, ‘everyday’ and ‘specialist’ exchange. In the evening, Underline, a cinema like space in the railway arch, which divides the road, was created. It provided a focal point, a coming together of residents, visitors and artists, that emphasised the living potential of this complex interaction. The event’s overall curation was overseen by a committee, comprising of its main project leaders, for instance Melina Michaels was the lead curator, and Andrew Vallance and Jenny Baines designed and curated Underline. Open House London made the largest budgetary contribution to the events, and it was promoted as one of their ‘headliners’ (an image from the 2022 iteration was featured in their 2023 advertising). The ‘worth’ of the funding was assessed through visitor numbers, 5,000 in 2022 (which was one of the highest totals for that year). Also, this is evidenced in their financial contribution which doubled from 2022 to 2023.