Tonight I'll be going to this marvellous monthly comedy night, hosted by my good friend Sharney
at Platform Bar in Nettle House, Hackney.Platform, for me, is one in a long tradition of underground urban art houses that has made my time in London so colourful. When I first arrived in1992 there was a place in Brixton called Cool Tan Arts Centre. I had never been anywhere like it. It was an old DSS building that had been squatted by a community of artists. They held music events, workshops, poetry nights and art exhibitions, you could smoke weed and drink herbal tea. I loved it, but inevitably it got closed down, eventually.
At the end of the 90's The Drome became the centre of London's underground club scene with an anything goes, squat party attitude. From Thursday to Sunday, every weekend in London Bridge there was an indoor festival, where freedom reigned and London was cool. This was also closed down.
About the same time in a then deserted Old Street, an art gallery bar opened with a policy that if you wanted an exhibition you could have one. It's open door attitude created an air of freedom and rebelliousness. The Foundry gave everyone a chance to live out there artistic fantasies and helped some people with raw talent to refine their ideas. It became home to cool hipsters, anarchist groups, societies outsiders and the rich city boys who worked round the corner. I held my first exhibition there in 1999.
It was a unique creative space with no rules, in this massive, authoritarian urban sprawl. The Hoxton/Shoreditch art scene grew up around The Foundry and eventually it was overpowered and forced out by a chain of Art hotels, but not before it had helped change the landscape of London forever. It survived for over 10 years and when it was eventually closed down in 2010 it left a hole in the variety of nights out that London has to offer.
Bars like Platform in London Fields are fulfilling the need for venues like this in our great city.
Through a secret door in what looks like a disused tower block in Hackney there is a small oasis of creative freedom and a bohemian atmosphere that makes me glad to still be part of this vibrant artistic city.
If you get the chance to, please go and hang out there, because, as history tells us, these places often exist for only a brief moment in time
http://www.platformlondonfields.com/
http://www.platformlondonfields.com/events/
