LONDON.- East London’s vibrant persona has been published this autumn in
Voices: East London, a new book from photographer Maryam Eisler, co-published by TransGlobe Publishing and Thames & Hudson, which reveals the area’s thriving kaleidoscope of visual geography by means of dynamic interviews and striking new photography.
East London is at the forefront of Greater London’s evolving character, a lynchpin reinforcing the city’s international reputation for creativity and diversity. Having spearheaded the UK’s biggest population rise over the past decade, the area has well and truly moved beyond its old Dickensian aura.
Covering Shoreditch to Bethnal Green, Hackney Central to Clapton, Hoxton to Haggerston, Stoke Newington to Dalston, Whitechapel to Aldgate, Mile End to Limehouse, and Hackney Wick to Bow, the book features eighty creative personalities across genders, cultures and generations, all of whom have made the area their home.
Containing hundreds of new photographs and interviews with local icons, celebrities and everyday people, Voices: East London gives the reader insight into the lifestyle of leading artistic personalities including; Gilbert & George, Sue Webster, and Langlands and Bell, designer Stephen Webster; cultural leaders like long-time resident Charles Saumarez Smith, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts; Iwona Blazwick, Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery; Maureen Paley and Victoria Miro, pioneering gallerists; East End royalty, DJ and author Princess Julia; and Daniel Lismore, the ‘UK’s most flamboyant dresser and designer’. Other profiles include local cabbies, pub landlords, pie-and-mash shop owners and florists, Nick Jones, founder of Shoreditch House, culinary trailblazers David Waddington and Pablo Flack of Bistrotheque, and restaurateur Mark Hix, plus LGBTQ figureheads such as Jonny Woo and Lyall Hakaraia and the new generation of tech wizards like Google Campus head Sarah Drinkwater or TV and radio presenter George Lamb. East End eccentrics also have a look-in, among them pataphysicist Viktor Wynd and the Queen of Spitalfields, beloved landlady Sandra Esquilant of The Golden Heart pub.
From The Glory to Columbia Road Market, Repton Boxing Club to Village Underground, Voices: East London connects the dots around the creative perspectives that make London’s East End unique while providing colourful glimpses into its past. The book places the area among Europe’s pre-eminent ‘creative ghetto’ communities with a future that may well determine the capital’s cultural direction. Voices: East London captures the area’s unique out-of-the box spirit at a time of political and economic uncertainty, with Brexit, immigration and the refugee crisis, and the growth of populist politics gripping the public imagination.
Maryam Eisler holds a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA from Columbia University. She has had executive editorial roles on several publications including Sanctuary: Britain’s Artists and their Studios, Art Studio America: Contemporary Artist Spaces and London Burning: Portraits from a Creative City. Eisler is co-chair of Tate’s MENAAC, a member of the Tate International Council, a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and sits on the advisory board for Photo London. Maryam’s photography is represented by London-based gallery Tristan Hoare.
