A project celebrating the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural
‘It’s a landmark. A celebration of people getting together and protesting for something positive. It’s full of diversity of people and cultures and beliefs. It’s vibrant and full of music and very blue. I feel it really represents Hackney – the people – I know this type of thing happened elsewhere all over the world – but this is Hackney!”
Dalston Curve Garden Mural Project participant, 2024
The Hackney Peace Carnival Mural is right outside the front entrance of Dalston Eastern Curve Garden and in September 2025 it celebrated its 40th anniversary. It was designed by muralist Ray Walker and painted by Anna Walker and Mick Jones.
Throughout 2024 and 2025, Dalston Garden worked with the Walker family and others to plan a project to celebrate this iconic piece of public art. Our project received funding from Hackney Council’s Cultural Fund to explore the Mural through artist led workshops, with members of our weekly ‘Tuesday Group’ for older people, children from Holy Trinity Primary School and members of the Hackney community.
Our project, ‘This is Hackney’, emerged from a programme of creative workshops, developed by artists Laura Halliwell and Corinne Beaty in consultation with members of the group. Along the way, the participants discussed their thoughts, feelings and questions about the Mural and shared memories of moving to, and living in, Hackney in the 1980s. (Share your own thoughts and memories here)
One of the outcomes of our project is the installation of beautifully detailed ‘3D self portraits’, each lovingly crafted by participants. These were initially displayed together at Dalston Garden in 2024 and with more participant models added, have been displayed in the windows of CLR James Library on Dalston Lane from September 2025 onwards. The figures stand together in all their diversity, in a ‘peace carnival scene’, surrounded by participant’s own words about the Mural, about community activism, about Hackney and about peace.
As well as the 3D installation, we gathered a collection of responses from the groups we worked with to different prompts and themes connected to the Mural. These included memories, creative responses such as artworks and poetry, plus interviews and opinions. These responses will form part of an online project archive – coming soon.
What does the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural mean to you? We would love even more people of all ages to get involved in growing this archive, by sharing thoughts and feelings about the Mural and the themes it reflects – if you would like to add your own responses, you can do so here:
Many thanks to the members of our Tuesday Group, and to Ruby Cowmeadow for her research and recording work on this project. Thank you to Jen White, Amirah Samer and Sasha Vinnicombe for their assistance in workshops and model making. Thank you to Holy Trinity Primary School for their involvement in the project. Thank you to Brian Cumming for the design and build of the installation.
‘This is Hackney’ has been supported by the ‘Cultural Hackney Fund’.
