The Grand Old Echo - Naomi

This video starts and finishes with my warehouse neighbours in Fish Island and Hackney Wick. This performance is dedicated to them. Our area was an industrial wasteland until artists moved in, covered the area in vibrant street art, breathed life into the abandoned buildings and built a community based on mutual respect, queer safe spaces, charity, connection, activism, communal gardens, big smiley shared meals and artistic expression. I've never truly known community until I knew my warehouse people. Now we face mass eviction, redevelopment and involuntary uprooting. Too soon, in place of neon-mural adorned warehouses will stand grey concrete and red brick, making way for unaffordable-to-artists, cookie-cutter, new build apartments. Demonstrating this contrast, you'll notice our own warehouse's vibrancy reflected in the windows of the plain red new build that now stands opposite us. I for one welcome the new residents with open arms while still yearning to preserve our own place in this community. I think we can co-exist and thrive if we embrace this beautiful place together. There have been a few tensions between the student, new build and warehouse residents, but ultimately we are reaching an accord and share this space extremely well - I've met amazing people from all sides and it's been a joy to do so. Now that the artists have made this area an attractive place to live however, the developers would like to clear us out as fast as and aggressively as possible, pushing out the soul and vibrancy along with us. We can't stop it, we can only slow it down. I aim to soak up and appreciate every day I'm lucky enough to exist here. Hackney Wick and Fish Island has taught me so much about myself, I only hope I can make you smile like we did this day many more times, while we still share this magical space. I won't speak for Jenni and Jon, but I thank you for making them as welcome as you've always made me. We're truly free to be whoever we want to be here, and our music has grown within a place that embraces and encourages the weird, wild and wonderful. I believe we wouldn't be who we are as a band without you and your constant encouragement. This isn't our cleanest performance, and it doesn't need to be here. It is messy and full of joy, like life in the warehouses. Forever grateful, Alex