The Hive was a “motherly” building, a womb of creativity, ideas, actions, but also spirituality, connection, awareness, a shelter, a hub, and much, much more.. a very busy place indeed. I was crew member for the last 10 months of its life, being a musician and having had some experience in other community projects in the past, I was invited to become music studio and stage manager, I accepted. I had an intense and beautiful ride, with ups and downs, stress, hard work, joy, beautiful friendships, parties, dramas, everything! When I was given the studio to sort out it was a mess, so I spent 5 days no stop working on it as I really wanted to make a change and inspire, I wanted to create a “sacred space” that anybody could really enjoy.. I guess I succeed. Of course I did, like everybody else involved, all sort of other stuff too: cleaning, painting, gardening, moving furniture, serving tea and coffee, helping as much as possible to keep the ball rolling and “serving” the project. Despite all the problems we were facing, there was this kind of feeling of being part of something special, a sort of social experiment, a new formula, standing in the heart of East London, shining, rough, exciting, tiring, overwhelming. Now that it's closed down, it's probably the right time to look back and try to understand what that whole thing was.. In my experience, it was hard to draw a line between rest and work, being crew at the Hive could mean being sucked in job after job, there was so much going on everyday and as a consequence a lot of preparation and setting needed to be done, in order to change the space according to what was happening. In my view, one of the hardest challenges was managing and organizing the crew and I am sure we learnt a lot. I also learnt a lot about human nature, about the way you perceive others and how others perceive you, especially while being on the same rocking boat. I realized how much Hive helped so many ideas to flourish and so many people, anybody could knock on the door and ask for help, from a simple cup of tea or charging a phone to getting to use the space for an art exhibition, workshop, showcase or concert, you name it, it was happening there. As society, we are navigating on obscure waters and I do think we need more Hives in the world today. (A.Maranca)