The Geezers have been working on an exciting art and history project.
Creating a Song of Whitechapel
Aya Haidar’s upcoming public artwork, ‘A Lovesong For Whitechapel’, will draw on the lived experience of the local community. Young people from Swanlea School and the Bow Geezers have been working with composer Tom Carradine to create a traditional cockney knees up song.
Music is key to the project, weaving together a giant mosaic of what Whitechapel was, is and represents to the incredibly vibrant and diverse populations that all call it home.
The final artwork, commissioned by Tower Hamlets Council and curated and produced by UP Projects, will be a light-focused piece that presents local history in a contemporary setting, and is set to be installed on Whitechapel High Street later this year.
Geezers Chair, Eddie Snooks says:
Working on this project has seen The Geezers visit two of Tower Hamlets most architecturally interesting and culturally diverse buildings: Swanlea School and The George Tavern. Swanlea School is an impressive twenty first century steel and glass building. The George Tavern a little bit more familiar to The Geezers. It’s a wonderfully historic pub on Commercial Road (E1 0LA).
A couple of years ago Spitalfields Life wrote in detail about The George and its force of nature landlady, Pauline Forster, and her continuing struggle to keep The George open.
During the geezers visit she kindly let us have a nose about upstairs and as you can see we took some great pictures.
The Geezers Where’s my Boozer Gone campaign and the artwork on the hoardings behind the Thames Magistrates’ Court in Bow highlight just some of the East End pubs that will never serve a pint again.
Please don’t let The George Tavern become another pub name on the hoarding: pop in for some beers and tell Pauline The Geezers sent you!