2022 Round-Up!
2022 saw us settling into the new ’normal’. We had an incredible summer, thanks in part to the great weather and the hard work of our dedicated team to put on phenomenal cultural and community events and continue their efforts to upgrade the venue.
Without customers, however, there would be no Grow so we'd love to take this opportunity to give our appreciation to you too! Thanks to everyone who came to Grow, enjoyed our events or hung out on our terrace, sampled a few bevvies or tucked into our food and backed our causes. Your support is greatly received and means that we can continue providing space for creatives of all levels to thrive and a place where people can come together.
Please read on to see our 2022 highlights.
CULTURAL & COMMUNITY EVENTS
With the help of funding and partners, we were able to achieve our aim to remove or reduce financial barriers and extend opportunities to enjoy a creative and nurturing environment to all. We ran over 200 free or low cost events this year, showcasing musicians, DJs, artists and creatives of all sorts.
Music and Cultural Events - With 252 events in the bag for this year, we can safely say that this year's been one to remember. Thanks to all that have participated and made these possible!
We'd like to thank all of our partners that we've been working with since before Hackney Wick was the thriving epicentre for nightlife that it is now. It's been a huge year for the teams behind Motherland, Mucho Soul, Midnight Train, Tribelife, And What? and Disco Freaks for different reasons, from Motherland becoming a global ambassador for Afro House to And What + Mucho Soul bringing through line ups dreams are made of to their events, to Timanti releasing music on Jon Digweed's label and consistently getting bookings at iconic venues in London and Ibiza.
We're grateful for all of our new partners that have taken our events programming to a new level, from the bonafide club legend, Marcia Carr and her all female, all vinyl night, Girlz B Like to Nat & Ernesto from the Beirut Groove Collective with their rare Middle Eastern and African records and the broken beat maestros behind Selectors Assemble who made their debut in November and who you'll be seeing more of in 2023. Special mention goes to Shedding Histories and our resident conguero, Williams Cumberbatch for lighting up our pontoon come rain or shine!
On the live music front we'd love to thank the team behind My Word, Hackney Arts Ensemble, Ariwo and Not the Usual Jam for consistently hosting such great events across the year and for creating such a high quality platform for the hundreds of musicians that have graced their nights.
Big thanks to Korev for supporting our series of live music acts on various Saturday nights throughout the year, including Tumbaito, Lokandes, Drum Heads, One Drum, Seeds of Creation Abdoulaye Samb and Luz Elena Caicedo.
We cannot thank Hackney Council enough for allowing us to host 10 workshops with ingenious creatives/entrepreneurs at low cost ticket prices. From West African Drumming, to freestyle rap to painting, we have been blown away by the demand and turnout for these workshops and we hope that they return in 2023.
Gratitude goes out to every performer and DJ that has graced our stage, there are literally too many to mention but a few that captured our hearts this year were Zag, Kev Beadle, Jon Onabowiu, Insxght, Alina Bzhezhinska, Sharky, Liam Bailey, Lea + the Sunflowers, Hemai, GRAMN.and K15.
Our events will culminate in style with our MIDNIGHT TRAIN NEW YEARS EVE PARTY, tickets still available here!
‘Grow Together’ - With support from Hackney Council as part of their ‘Hello Again Hackney’ initiative, we were able to offer 11 one-off workshops with dinner provided for just £5 per person. The workshops ranged from African drumming, MC training, monoprinting and life-drawing to blacksmithing, tree propagation and upcycling tyres. These sessions were incredibly popular and we had some great feedback, so we hope to be able to provide more in the upcoming year. Read our blog for more details
Open House Festival - To mark Grow’s history, heritage and contemporary context, we were excited to be part of Open House Festival 2022; a two week celebration of London’s housing, architecture and neighbourhoods. Guests got a behind-the-scenes peek at some of our resident artists and their studios, met some of our community partners and were of course treated to some outstanding music and performances
IMPROVING THE VENUE
Our aim is to make this space the best it can be for your enjoyment. We are constantly making upgrades to the venue, some more noticeable than others, and have undertaken a few major projects this year.
New Kitchen & Outside Bar - So we could serve you quicker, we built a new kitchen and refurbished our existing kitchen into an outdoor bar. We have since been perfecting our kitchen offerings and will be excited to introduce fresh new menus in the new year.
Greenhouse - Having a new outside bar enabled us to dismantle our previous ’outside’ bar which was located in the Greenhouse. This means we have an even greater capacity in the Greenhouse, perfect for your birthdays and group gatherings. Why not get organised for next year, now? Enquire about a large booking
Mezzanine Gallery - We have put in the groundwork for our new gallery in our mezzanine area, where we aim in 2023 to showcase the work of one artist per month. We look forward to announcing our first guest artist early next year.
PARTNERSHIPS
Wherever we can, we do our best to support our community, local businesses and people who share our passion for putting people and planet over profit. Here are some updates on our latest partnerships:
Growing Communities - We set up a collection point on our premises for Growing Communities’ climate-friendly organic fruit and vegetable scheme for Hackney & Haringey. If you are interested in signing up or finding out more about them please visit their website; https://growingcommunities.org/
Hackney Night Shelter (HNS) Fundraising - This winter we invited HNS to join our Festive Future Fair to gain awareness for their mission; to provide routes out of homelessness for people in need in Hackney. We added a donation button to our app and have since been collecting funds for their appeal. We will be continuing this appeal into the new year and would love your help to reach our target, any donations are very gratefully received! https://www.hwns.org.uk/
Into The Wild’s Summer Solstice - To celebrate the solstice, we partnered with Chisenhale Studios ‘Into the Wild’ programme to host their annual event where students get to experiment and showcase their work in unusual spaces. This unique, free course supports artists in the early stages of their career by offering opportunities and providing practical advice on how to survive and thrive in the world beyond art school.