Innercity Films
Innercity Films is a community organisation, working with Londoners since 2002. Using a wide range of audio-visual platforms, the organisation works with locals to produce multi-faceted projects across the city. Funded by a range of public bodies and trusts, including the Weavers’ Company.
Future Hackney Gallery
The Weavers’ Company has supported Future Hackney since 2016, documenting social change in East London. The most prolific work of this initiative includes the documentary series and professional archive of migrant communities in Dalston and workshops produced with vulnerable intergenerational groups. They co-author the images and oral histories with locals and young people using digital and film photography to help people develop new pathways. The projects focus on accessible skills, well-being and community cohesion and the work is exhibited as large format street exhibitions in public spaces.
Tony and Meech the dog, September 2022
“I have been working with Future Hackney for two months now and I enjoy learning about photography and being a part of something important. I have worked with their facilitators to produce and edit my own images and story as I want other young people to know that they can survive the care system and do positive things. I am looking forward to seeing my story as part of one of their street exhibitions in 2023”.
“My family are from West Africa, Somalia. I lived there from the ages of three to ten years old. It’s a wild and adventurous place where pirates roam. My mum Hannah died of cancer when I was six and dad Ishmaili bought us back here, but he had other children and other responsibilities. So My two brothers Hussian and Aiden and I ended up in care. The care homes are crazy because there are usually around eight to ten other troubled kids like you, so it’s always kicking off, every day. I was angry, upset and pushed from place to place, wondering where is my family? I was a misunderstood child. I never got hugs or much love, so I wasn’t ever sure what that kind of love actually was? I never got birthday cakes or celebrated with people so I am always anxious and a bit embarrassed about this. People who grow up in care are very vulnerable to the streets. Boys especially. They end up in gangs getting stabbed and then long bird. Girls too, they end up getting sexually abused and groomed. The trouble that I have seen in my life hurts my heart. This is my story from care home to street to prison and now striving to start my own food business and lead a good life.”
