Hackney Riviera | Nick Waplington
Images: Nick Waplington’s photographs from the series “Hackney Riviera” (2018) © Nick Waplington
Snapshot
Nick Waplington’s photo series, Hackney Riviera
Artist: Nick Waplington
Title: Hackney Riviera (London, England)
Photograph (print)
Year: 2018 (series), 2019 (book)
Dimensions (print): 11 x 14 in
from the LARS “Art in our Apartment” catalog / essay series
VIPs at the Hackney Riviera
If you conceptualize the romance of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s 1767 Rococo painting, The Swing, and combine it with the working class realities of Mike Leigh’s 1983 film, Meantime, you may understand the distinct environment of Nick Waplington’s photo series, Hackney Riviera. The series was shot in London during a very particular time: 2018’s summer of Brexit and Men’s World Cup fervor. Waplington refreshed the tone of that agitated season, reframing it as, “while the news tells us we’re living in this polarized Britain, it was great to find the antithesis of that – people in a very diverse, multicultural community getting together and having a good time.” Mentally merging the fanciful foliage from Fragonard and the cantankerous grit from Leigh, we can engage with Waplington’s scene of quiet solace and emotional unwind.
Imagine you’re in your flat on a sticky, hot August day, sweating through your permanently off-white, white tank. You and your siblings are silently rotating around the kitchen locations in order to strategically receive the best blasts of AC. Your parents enter stage left and announce an afternoon at the local watering hole, a short drive away. They clink emerald Carlsbergs into a red Igloo. The oldest sibling slaps together some pb and js, and everyone piles into the car.
All the locals are there and although you don’t know anyone, you recognize everyone. Someone’s phone is propped up in a sneaker, providing muted tunes for the scene. Kids have their towels draped over their shoulders while they hunch over their rock plots. You can’t imagine how they could possibly be chilly, but that’s because you have yet to venture into the ice bath that is the murky water ahead.
Your sunglasses are already smudged to opacity, but they remain on as part of your wistful look. You see comrades’ chicken arms expertly skim a sliver above the water’s rim, and watch as extended limbs recoil at the first brush against unseen suspicions. After claiming prime, but minuscule, mosquito-filled space under a tree, you head towards the water, dollar store inflatable in tow.
You are meters from an eight-lane highway, but here in this generous True Blood-style nook of a timeless fairy-landscape, you are in a whimsical oasis. Sun beams tickle the tree branch armpits and surf along the water ripples, creating a halo-like outline to the entire setting. Golden hour is on repeat.
This scene is not for Wes Anderson. It was not scripted by Jane Austen. There is not a pastel nor a cohesive color palette in sight. There are no striped beach umbrellas with their scalloped edges. No one is exchanging lengthy highbrow discourse. A slender server is not popping by to take your aperitivo order. The charm here is in a coming-of-age kind of way, brimming with unpursued adventures.
Although you weren’t serenaded by a frilled suitor from the 18th century, the Hackney Riviera offered its finest local thrills. Eventually it is time to leave, pruned and (for some reason) sandy, so you slink into the back seat of the car where it is non-negotiable to sit on a towel, protecting mom’s seats. The radio is tuned to the game, to catch up with the scores you didn’t have cell service to monitor earlier. You get home just in time to shower, change into your restaurant uniform, and smile gently because you have half a shade more of a tan going into your night shift.
pairs well with:
Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (film); Salvage the Bones (book by Jesmyn Ward); glare; rope swings; citronella; potato chip salty fingers; blue fla-vor-ice popsicles; jewel tones; Sookie Stackhouse; the scene in The Great Gatsby (book by F. Scott Fitzgerald) when Daisy says “you always look so cool” – aka “I love you”.
Works Cited
Fox, Killian. “The Big Picture: Swimmers on the Hackney Riviera.” The Guardian, September 29, 2019, URL.