Hive Memories I remember my first visit to the building. The first week we had the keys, a sense of adventure in the air. No electricity so we explored the huge space by candlelight and explored the possibilities breathlessly, over a beer and a jar of olives, while the street lights cast patterns over our faces and our voices echoed through the cavernous rooms. A posse of people, each entranced by the potential of this place, dazzled by our dreams of a free space for culture, expression and humanity. The next two weeks was sweeping, painting, scraping grease and hair off the walls, rewiring the lights, cleaning, scrubbing, building and planning our opening show. We had an army of volunteers and plenty of work to go round. Our opening event was the Freedom project, an evolution of the traditional group exhibition, a collaboration, open to all and designed to grow as more people engaged with it. The Freedom project was an invitation to get involved; free creative workshops, space on the walls for any artwork people brought along, open mics and jam sessions. Over the two weeks of the Freedom project hundreds of people got involved with the show. Artwork was added, people came for workshops and stayed to play music, or recite poetry, connections were made, friendships were forged, the children's paintings hung next to canvases and prints from professional artists. An early debate was about alcohol. Did the Hive want an alcohol licence? The bar is often the most reliable income stream for a cultural venue, but was it necessary? When Gee first proposed that this venue should be dry, promoting healthier, more family friendly events, the proposal felt dangerously radical. The more we discussed the idea, the better it seemed. Kingsland Road has no shortage of licensed premises, you can get drunk in 40 different venues within half a mile of the Hive. We decided the Hive could offer something else. What we offered more than anything was an open space for expression, discussion or creation. People performed for the first time at the Hive because they found they weren't afraid. Our audiences nurtured and supported one another and let go of social fears in among the cushions and sofas. This was not a space for posturing. No one cared how new your clothes were. You couldn't buy prestige here. We made our own. There was no lift in the building. Everything in the Hive had to be carried up the stairs – every table, armchair, board, window, sofa, piece of timber, speaker, pallet, toolbox and carpet. We paid in sweat for the Hive, and it paid us back in unforgettable moments of connection between people. Things: The white tiger - usually to be found on the stage or being pulled about by the tail by small children, or later in the day providing a cuddly pillow for someone listening to music or spoken word, I once witnessed the white tiger terrifying a small dog who would approach trembling and growling, bark sharply in warning and retreat at full speed to the safety of behind some human legs. I think the white tiger enjoyed all these moments. The giant panda head. Also often found on stage, but also resting on the shoulders of a mannequin sporting a Hive tee-shirt or other item of high fashion. Once an event reached a certain level of happy dancing the giant panda head would often be sported by someone on the dancefloor. The giant panda head was used in at least one photo-shoot when creating the star wars themed Nerd Night flyer – these are not the nerds you are looking for. The giant bean bag. Loved by all, the giant beanbag acted as my bed many times when I stayed late to get something finished. A full grown adult could fall into it and it would simply mould itself around them creating a cosy cocoon that was perfect to sleep in and almost impossible to get out of. The giant beanbag is a favourite seat for half the crew and most of the customers once they have experienced it's comforts. Most busy nights there will be a couple curled up in it together. During the day it is the favourite toy for the kids. They love to run across the stage and leap off the edge, somersaulting through the air and landing on the beanbag. A lot of amazing activities happened at the Hive but that might have been the most fun had by anybody. Dave. One afternoon while the second floor gallery was a skate-park, I got a call from my friend Emily who was visiting London with her graffiti crew from Dublin. They were looking for somewhere to paint and after getting a little lost a couple of times they made it to the Hive. We gave them our space, paints and boards and left them to it and a couple of hours later when they hit the road, they left Dave behind. A painting of a girl with red hair rendered in spray-paint over paper pasted to board, she looks out powerful and strong from the painting, a beautiful challenge to whoever is watching, below her the word Love is written in a style that led most people to read it as dave. Dave became the Hive's most ubiquitous artwork. She sat in the window watching swing dancing, or adorned the walls during juggling and was placed for a while at the top of a ramp in the Hive's temporary skate-park. Moments Terry playing harmonica while waiting for paint to dry on the freedom exhibition sign he was painting. A visiting musician starts accompanying him on a native American double flute. Bongos and someone to play them appear from nowhere (as they always do). Gee is riding round the room on a skateboard throwing out ideas. The children are painting the bottom parts of the walls while adults do the top bits. An unexpected menstrual cape during Carlos' grand erection. It is impossible to do justice to the 30 minutes during the Buzz festival when we raised Carlos' totem pole, Brian gave a speech and a Native American blessing and then an unexpected woman with white hair and a fertility idol stepped forward to 'celebrate the feminine'. She had slept unnoticed on a sofa in the Hive after an event the night before. She had a cape, a doll, a determination to lead an impromptu ceremony and some strong ideas for who should be frolicking and when. You wouldn't believe me if I described it, you'll have to watch the footage. We build a second stage overnight to remain friends with the neighbours. The Hive on a busy day with a group of activists meeting on the sofas to plan a demo, a film screening and performance being set up on the main stage, two people from a music production company using a table by the window as an office, a yoga session going on upstairs, an art exhibition covering every wall, the cafe is selling teas and cake and the children are rehearsing a play on the back stage. As part of the Hive's Buzz festival Philippa Hambley puts on a free performance of her brilliant one woman show The Pain and Strife of the Bourgeois Life to say thank you for the rehearsal space the Hive provided. A motley collection of children, performers, Hive crew, and some wanderers in from the street are treated to a delightful satirical romp through the ages as Eve is expelled from the garden and wanders the world of men, searching for a way back in. A night of art, poetry and spoken word, raising money for charities working in Congo. A woman steps on to the stage. She is a survivor of rape. Rape used as an act of war and terror on a mass scale in Congo. She starts to speak. Her poem tears into her audience. Standing straight, she examines her pain unflinchingly. She pulls apart the brutality and cowardice of those who use rape as a tool of control. Her anger is matched by her clarity and her strength is illuminating the stage and washing over all of us. She pities the fear and violence of her attackers, she speaks of the women who have to live with the pain. “It is a wonder we still find the strength to smile, But we have to. It is us who will end this war.” You could hear a pin drop. Her words, her rage, her refusal to be victim, echo in my head and heart for days, changing everything I see around me. A late night of stripping and painting walls, in the lead up to our grand opening. A pleasant young man called Sam has come along to help. The conversation turns to the Freedom Exhibition opening the following week and Sam expresses sadness at the impossibility of offering a live polystyrene sculpting session during the show. We talk about the problems – it is a noisy, smelly, mildly noxious activity that fills the air around it with polystyrene snow and dust; the polystyrene blocks are large and the whole process takes a lot of space; the heat-cutter uses a huge amount of power. We strip walls and paint and mull. We start to talk about solutions. Sam Smudger ran a live sculpting production called Watch This Space at the Hive's Freedom Exhibition. A large corner of the second floor gallery was sealed off with sheets of plastic creating a translucent fish-bowl. Inside the space, Sam had the external windows open for ventilation and worked on his sculpture in short bursts, in between performances so as to avoid being too disruptive with his sounds. A donation pot was placed by the sheets asking visitors to make a contribution towards the electricity bill. The sculpture continued to grow after the Freedom Exhibition, and was a feature of the Hive second floor for months. Not stopping there, Sam Smudger created a light projection to flow across the contours of the sculpture which he presented in a light show and music night, and which you can see in Fleur Disney's video. Events The Tibet Relief Fund filled the Hive with Tibetan monks, who filled the Hive with chanting and music from instruments I'd never seen before. Settling down to two days of intense, precise work, the monks created a sand mandala, painstakingly placing thousands of grains of coloured sand into a beautiful, textural, coloured pattern. Their efforts demonstrated a patience and concentration that really emphasised, the rushed, thoughtless nature of modern life. Upon completion of the incredible and beautiful mandala, the monks destroyed it. Using brushes to sweep away the patterns and mix up the coloured sand, they gathered all the grains together into a multicoloured heap, and swept a portion of the pile into a bowl. Forming a brightly coloured procession, the monks with their red and saffron robes and hats, chanting and playing music led us down the stairs and out of the Hive. Along Kingsland Road we walked, gaining people as we went. Down to the water. On this fine Saturday afternoon in July, an ancient Buddhist ceremony, symbolising life; death; creation; destruction; and the constant inevitability of change; was completed on the canal path in Haggerston when the mixed sand from their destroyed mandala was poured into the waters of Regents Canal. Inspired by the Hive's approach to alcohol, the conscious hip hop crew Lyrically Challenged decided to run a family friendly summer bbq, bringing together hip hop, spoken word, graffiti, breakdance, vegan food, poetry and kid's workshops. This event was filled with so many inspirational moments, I danced, laughed and jumped around with a mixed up crowd of every age group, every colour, even a giant panda. I felt my heart moved by honest, genuine lyrics and saw the same connection in the rapt faces around me. When the kids showed us their sweet dance moves it felt like we had truly made a space where the future could grow. In early September 2015 the Hive hosted a CalAid donation day to allow people to donate useful goods to help refugees in Calais and Greece. Over the course of the day hundreds of volunteers – from CalAid and the Hive Crew – gathered, sorted and shipped tonnes of shoes, warm clothing, bags, bathroom goods and other essential items to CalAid warehouses where they could be taken to France. The donated goods filled the Hive. They built up to a 2 meter pile throughout the first and second floors with a human chain sending unsorted bundles of goods into the building and up the stairs, and large labelled tonne-sacks of size 9 mens shoes or clean woolly hats back down again. CalAid were so overwhelmed with the quantity of goods being donated that they had to arrange for access to two more warehouses just to store all the goods in. At the first Hive conference, architects, activists, academics, planners, policy makers and politicians came together to discuss the idea of holistic urban regeneration. Sharing their ideas, research and experience; and exploring new approaches to city living; the conference speakers are surrounded by sculpture and painting, stalls and installations created by underground artists in an all-encompassing exhibition called Antidote. The last night at the Hive – Hive Mentality – an appropriately mixed up night of music, poetry, and spoken word, performance, jam and open mic. At 3am we switched off the sound system. It made no difference. The jam went on until 6am. The crowd made it's own party, made it's own music. Said goodbye to the Hive with melody, poetry and love.