COMMUNITY ACTION

Grow is part of an ecosystem of studios which has been creative home to artists, musicians and creative practitioners since 2007. The venue and its activity has been built on the principles of the creative sharing economy - sharing skills, lending tools and upcycling wherever possible. Community action is fundamental to DIY culture.

We’ve been committed to ensuring affordable access to music, art and the ideas of sustainability and ethical business with free and affordable events for the communities of Hackney Wick and beyond. This extends to the offer of reasonable priced sustainably and ethically sourced food and drinks - including organic and free range.

GROW CHANGE

Since 2014, we’ve worked with community partners to host workshops and talks called ‘Grow Change’. Over 2022, we’re hosted community events throughout the year, including 10 workshops for Hackney residents to join makers, producers, musicians, artists and activists and participant in an introductory creative activity and enjoy a communal meal together. Find out more.

During the lockdowns, we hosted Grow Change online. The vision for this series of online events was to (re)connect our communities who previously might have to come to Grow to meet friends and/or new people to share and learn in a relaxed way. Events included: artists’ talks, book clubs & a drumming workshop. Events were also recorded and archived in Grow at Home.

In previous years, we’ve hosted a series of drop-in events to share experience, knowledge and skills on the themes of ethical economics; community resilience and gentrification; education out of the institution; self-care and climate action. Read our blog to find out more.

FUNDRAISING

We’ve been fundraising for local and international social and environmental charities since the start. We work in collaboration with our partners to organise events where people give up their skills, time and talent for the causes they’re passionate about.

We’ve raised awareness and funds for  Herbalists Without Borders; Love Music Hate Racism; Core Arts; People's Film Club; Divest Hackney; Extinction Rebellion; Big Issue; Groundswork UK and the Hackney Night Shelter. There are many more events and we thank all our partners and people who come down to help these important causes.

SUSTAINABILITY

We have an annual Sustainability Action Plan which informs our ambitions, targets and actions as well as a Sustainability Policy; an Environmental Policy and Social Value Policy. Find out more about our sustainability policies.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Local artists, sustainability startups and social justice groups make use of the space to sell at our markets, host fundraisers, meetings and workshops. We also partner with local enterprises who create products out of organic, community grown and/or waste produce/ingredients. As a busy bar, we celebrate their products. We rely on them as key stockists and they rely on us as key customers to their support their business. We’re also founding members of the Hackney Wick and Fish Island Community Development Trust, which was instrumental in the area becoming one of the Mayor of London’s Creative Enterprise Zone in 2019.

Since 2014, our partners have included:

• Growing Communities - we’re a pick up point for this organic fruit and vegetable scheme

• Chisenhale Studios - working with artists from their Into The Wild Program, which is an artist development programme at Chisenhale Studios

• Core Arts - we support this local mental health and arts charity through fundraising at events, including Hackney Half Marathons

• Hackney Herbal - we dedicated a planter to this social enterprise who have hosted joint events at Grow such as herbs for wellbeing

• Plastic Free Hackney - this campaign group are on a mission to eliminate single use plastics from Hackney have used Grow to discuss projects

• East London Permaculture Group - have used Grow as a meetup space to discuss ideas and share knowledge

• Wick Radio - a group of artists who run a local radio station haved broadcasted our events and their own shows from Grow

• Hackney WickED - an annual arts event and open studios where we work with local artists and musicians to share work.

GROW’S BLOG