CULTURAL HACKNEY:

Round 2

Cultural Hackney is a grant fund from Hackney Council which aims to support communities to deliver cultural activities that reflect and celebrate the borough's rich diversity and heritage. 

The second round of the grant programme was launched in June 2024, attracting a total of 70 applications. Eleven grants were awarded to a wide range of organisations, working with very diverse communities, including migrant women, Orthodox Jewish girls, diaspora musicians and brain injury survivors, to mention just a few.

The funded projects take place at various times from October 2024 to March 2025 and most of them include a public sharing of the resulting artwork.  Don’t miss out on these special performances, exhibitions and events that celebrate Hackney’s extraordinary and talented communities!

Check out the full list of projects below:

  • Counterpoints Arts: Sounds Like Home Choir

    Building on the success of the Sounds Like Home Choir, initially launched with funding from the first round of Cultural Hackney, Counterpoints Arts invites even more women of all backgrounds to celebrate their diverse heritage through music, and to perform in public. Participants share and sing songs, delving into the stories, languages, and genres that define their cultural identities.

    Membership of the choir is currently FULL, please contact for more information:  hello@counterpoints.org.uk An end of term performance will happen on December 4th. Full details of the final performance are to follow.

  • DB Music: Local & Live in Hackney

    Join Local & Live in Hackney, a vibrant collective of local musicians showcasing the rich musical traditions of Hackney's diverse diaspora. From Senegalese beats to Kurdish folk, the performances celebrate cultural diversity and support local talent.

    Catch the gigs from November 2024 to March 2025 at DB Music in Stoke Newington and Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston. Full details of the performances will be shared here soon.

  • SDNA: Reflections of Life

    ‘Reflections of Life’ is a collaboration between digital artists Valentina Floris, Ben Foot (SDNA), fine artist C.A.Hapin and St. Joseph’s Hospice. Through creative workshops in drawing, painting, photography, and digital storytelling, daytime patients will create portraits and soundscapes. Passersby can enjoy outdoor projections of the resulting artworks, which celebrate and share stories and meaningful connections to the community.

    See the outdoor projections at St Joseph’s Hospice from 21 January until 18 February, from sunset (approx 16:30) until 21:30 every day.

  • Jun Mo Generations: Lunar New Year

    In partnership with Hackney’s brand new East and South East Asian Centre, Jun Mo Generations proudly presents Hackney’s spectacular Lunar New Year Celebrations over the weekend of 25-26 January 2025. Everyone is invited. Expect colourful Asian carnival costumes, vibrant cultural dance performances and unique musicians, all welcoming in the new year and new fortune ahead.  Chinese Dragon crafting workshops will also be held for children of all ages. An associated exhibition at the ESEA Centre will showcase Jun Mo Generation's costumes and members' portraits from the past 30 years.

    Full details will follow soon.

  • Raze Collective: Disability Awareness Training

    Raze Collective & Quiplash are teaming up to deliver disability awareness training, entirely free and open to creatives, venue owners, club promoters and artists in Hackney, followed by an open panel discussion on the accessibility work happening in Hackney’s LGBTQIA+ community.  The event will take place in early 2025 at Hackney Showroom.

    If this is for you, check back for further details and booking information.

  • Chats Palace: Breathe With Me

    Local artist Silvia Mercuriali and Chats Palace present a thrilling new autoteatro immersive event drawn from the richness of Chats palace elders’’ lived experience and the reality of their lives now they are older.

    Put on your headphones and join them in an adventure-filled journey around a side of Chats Palace you won’t have seen before from 12 – 15 March 2025.  You can find full booking details here in January 2025.

  • Headway East London: a new theatre production

    Headway’s new theatre project will be a celebration of stories that are as yet untold, from the experts, brain injury survivors themselves. Through a co-created performance of music, creativity, movement and visual art, the project will bring together communities with unseen brain injury survivors, to challenge perceptions and change the narrative of hidden disability. 

    Check back for booking details for performances in March 2025 and at a Headway Supper Club on 13th March 2025.

  • Xenia: Photowalks with UrbanLens3

    Xenia presents a series of outdoor photography workshops, led by artists UrbanLens3, for  Hackney-based participants from Xenia (migrant women) and Hackney Circle (Hackney residents aged 55+). Both groups will be walking, collaborating and taking photographs together.

    Everyone is invited to a public screening of the completed project at Shoreditch Town Hall in March.  Check back for full details.

  • Migrants Organise: Storytelling in Hackney for Dignity and Welcome

    Working with a storyteller, members of Migrants organise will co-create a collection of poems, stories, spoken word and podcasts. The project will culminate in an online exhibition reflecting lives, experiences and challenges linking to wider values of dignity, welcome, connection and the power of art to change lives

    More details on the resulting exhibition will follow soon.

  • Friends R Us: Community showcase

    Every year, Friends R Us engage Orthodox Jewish girls to take part in their creatively ambitious, trademark community showcase event.  Following three dedicated months of rehearsals, they will be back on stage at the Hackney Empire in early 2025, showcasing their girls’ hard work and talents. The project offers opportunities for participants to develop skills and experience in dance, drama, singing, sewing and props-building and the resulting performance is a much loved cultural highlight for the Orthodox Jewish community.

    Friends and families of the participants will be invited to the final performances in early 2025.

  • St John’s Deaf Community: Embracing Deaf Culture

    A vibrant series of workshops and events for all ages will enable participants to embrace Deaf Culture, sign language, history and identity. One workshop specifically for Deaf youth and Deaf Men will be held, in which lived experiences are explored and the humorous aspects of these are shared, recognising and celebrating resilience against audism.  Activities for both deaf and hearing people will include a Visual History of St John's Deaf Community through the years; a presentation and interactive workshop by about 'Deafhood' (reframing of the historical, cultural, and linguistic reality of Deaf people in the world from one that is minimising, oppressive or damaging); and screenings of the Deaf film, 'Power in Our Hands', with group discussions.

    These events will be interpreted and all are welcome.  Booking details are to follow.