Morocco

Hackney Wicked Arts Festival 2013

Behind the graffiti, industrial grit and grime, live-work spaces and artists studios of Hackney Wick, is an annual festival that celebrates all that is the Wick and its mad haze of colour, graffiti, random works of art (yes, even a pile of old tyres in Hackney Wick is classed as an art installation), street performances, music and workshops. At the height of Britain's industrial revolution, the Wick was where plastic, petrol and dry cleaning was invented. Today, the chemists, confectioners, piano makers and dry cleaners have been replaced by artists, photographers, designers and other wacky creative types.

The Lord Napier, an old working man's pub and later a venue for raves and squatters, got a paint job just in time for Hackney Wicked

Hackney Wicked festival goers against the colourful backdrop of the Lord Napier

Once a clothing factory, Oslo House in Hackney Wick was tarted up for the festival. It is now home to art galleries, antique memorabilia, and creative types

Signs pointing to the new types of businesses that have now set up in Hackney Wick—a German deli, brewery, co-working space, a theatre venue and cafes

An old disused building in Hackney Wick, believed to be the place where Alexander Parkes invented the first plastic, becomes an art gallery during Hackney Wicked, complete with tyre installation

A bicycle during the Festival that had seen better times

Looking out over Hackney Wick and Frontside Gardens skatepark from Hackney Wick station

Frontside Gardens a skate and BMX park that opened up on a disused bit of land, opposite an old historical building that used to be the site of Achilles Serre Dry Cleaners, the first-ever dry cleaning business in England

Vietnam

Click on the image for a slideshow picturing different scenes (some taken on a digital SLR and others on the iPhone) in Vietnam—from North Vietnam's hill tribes, to picturesque and foggy Halong Bay, ancient temples in Hue to the colourful streets of Hoi An. Some of the shots were taken out of the car window as we drove north from Hanoi.

Anita Hawser

Journalist and Researcher

Morocco

Hackney Wicked Arts Festival 2013

Vietnam