Andrew Palmer tells us about his experience of making art at the Shopping Village a building situated at the heart of Ridley Road Market, Dalston, Hackney.
He tells us how the latest changes that the area is undergoing which are related to high real estate prices, speculation and corruption and government underfunding of councils and public house building schemes, are also affecting the market and the Shopping Village, the latter having being earmarked for refurbishment by offshore private investors.
The problem, Andrew explains, is that the Shopping Village not only hosts about 60 artists but also small shops and lots of storage space for some of the street market traders.
If the refurbishment will go ahead with the proposed planning, not only the artists will not have an affordable space anymore but also it is not clear if the traders will have affordable storage space in the basement and affordable shop units on the ground floor of the building.
Andrew think that the refurbishment along with a new set of regulations and higher charges for storage space will set off a series of negative changes that will trigger the beginning of the end of the market as we know it.

My role: Filmmaker

Opening music: Bill and Adam Parry-Davies