A handbag made of cheese, shoe/sandwich hybrids walking in the street and bold outdoor light projections are part of this year’s Hackney Art Week.
The free festival, now in its second year, runs across ten days and celebrates contemporary creativity across London’s Hackney borough, featuring work from more than 60 artists in 50 venues and offering a diverse programme of exhibitions, installations, performances, workshops, and music. Hackney Art Week was co-founded by residents Lisa Baker and Anna McHugh.
The festival is set to run from June 4 until June 14.
The festival transforms the borough into a “network of cultural moments,” from ceramics markets and sound systems to sculptural installations and immersive street art. Events take place across Dalston, Clapton, London Fields, De Beauvoir, Stoke Newington, Haggerston, and Hackney Wick.
L–R David Hughes photography, Claudi Panaité projection on Wilton Way, Jonathan Schofield Lux Jardin are part of this year’s Hackney Art Week (Image: Hackney Art Week)
Read more
The history of Art Deco cinema rescued by the community 50 years agoThe banned Only Fools and Horses episode with ‘upsetting’ scenes
One of the standout installations is The Sandwich Walk by artist Jeanne Gourlaouen, a surreal public art piece on Wilton Way featuring shoe-sandwich hybrids that form a “strange, wandering crowd”.
The sculptures, caught mid-motion, blur the lines between the familiar and the absurd.
Another playful highlight comes from Hackney-based multimedia artist Holly-Anne Buck (collagism™), who brings back her cult cheese handbag—first seen at Paris Fashion Week—in the form of a limited-edition charity print to support Hackney Giving.
Collagism™ also presents an “art treasure hunt” that turns the streets of London Fields into a living collage. Participants are guided by QR codes and hidden clues, exploring surreal artworks tucked into cinemas, bakeries, and corner shops.
In De Beauvoir, the festival opens with Salon of The Spectacle at the Brutalist Rose Lipman Building.
Curated by Anne McCloy, the programme features work by photographer Amelia Troubridge, live dance, and an immersive installation by artist Katie King.
Outdoor projections will light up Wilton Way with work from multidisciplinary artist Claudi Panaite. Panaite, who works across fashion, art direction, and set design, has created work spanning Camden Fringe Festival, London Fashion Week, and Folies Bergère Paris, and will transform the street into a cinematic display of swirling skirts and dramatic capes in motion.
The event also reaches into the culinary world. At The Old Bath House, curator Mei Hui Liu presents an Asian art and food programme, including a dumpling pop-up and film screenings.
Art by Jun Jun, Bee Dwo Lin, Kelly Kiwi, Berlinda Chen, and Ivy Mei will be on display. Hackney’s broader community is at the heart of the festival.
At The Cannery, Place at the Table brings together young people with learning disabilities from the Laburnum Out and About Club in a ceramics workshop and market.
Visual storytelling takes centre stage in The White Cage, a photographic installation by NPG Portrait Award nominee Tara Darby.
Located at the Regent’s Estate football pitch—a rare gang-neutral space—the work documents the lives of young people, families, and mentors who rely on the pitch as a place of freedom and belonging.
Martina O’Shea is presenting a multi-sensory installation at Raleigh Chapel in Stoke Newington, exploring themes of memory and repair through sculpture, sound, and experimental stained glass.
Ms O’Shea said: “I’m excited to develop work for Raleigh Chapel—its architecture, history, and repairs inform the project, and I’m delighted to be part of Hackney Art Week.”
Live music also features prominently. Composer Gabriel Prokofiev, founder of the Nonclassical label and co-founder of Hackney’s Prokofiev Studios, will curate a night of music blending classical and electronic influences.
Hackney Art Week reflects the full breadth of the borough’s creative ecology — bringing together established names alongside emerging and independent artists and creatives. With growing local support and an expanding footprint, the free festival continues to evolve as a defining moment in London’s summer cultural calendar — rooted in place, community and creative exchange.