Squatting in Hackney with Tom Hunter, Mark Wilson and Leah Gordon

To celebrate the 50^th birthday of Chats Palace, Photographer Tom Hunter will talk with Mark Wilson, lead singer of The Mob, and Leah Gordon author of ‘Common People: A Folk History of Land Rights, Enclosure and Resistance’ about the squatting communities in Hackney in the 1980’s and 1990’s and alternative ways of living in Hackney and beyond.

Tom Hunter squatted on the East side on London Fields with a community of over 100 fellow squatters and did his first photography course at Chats Palace before making an international career in the art world documenting his community.

Mark Wilson squatted in Brougham Road, played with The Mob at Chats Palace for a Advisory Service for Squatters benefit gig, and helped set up the Brougham Rd Housing co-op. He and many others from this community later went on the road alongside the Peace Convoy (that had roots in the old Hackney Bus Garage) and that ultimately ended its run a few years later at the Battle of the Beanfield whilst trying to reach the Stonehenge free festival.

Leah squatted in many places in Central London in the 1980s, including Marylebone and Bloomsbury before settling in a Hackney housing co-operative house and finally a hard-to-let council flat. Gordon documented and participated in the M11 road campaign in 1994. She was in the Hackney-based folk punk band the Doonicans and played many times at Chats Palace.

The three will discuss the squatting communities they lived in, the co-ops that were formed after the squats and alternative ways of living. The talk will be illustrated with photographs from the Hackney Squats, protest camps and life on the road in the traveller communities.

Tom Hunter will show recently rediscovered archival large format colour transparencies made in the early 90’s of his community who squatted around the East side of London Fields, recollecting facts and stories from the time. This will be the first showing of this work before its featured in the Earthly Paradise Radical Living in the UK Exhibition opening at the William Morris Museum in Autumn 2026 and the publishing of his new photographic book, The Squatters Handbook.

Mark Wilson released a number of records on The Mob's own, All the Madmen, label and anarcho-punk Crass records including Witch Hunt and No Doves in the 1980’s. He worked alongside the people running Kill Your Pet Puppy Zine, the Centro Iberico and the Wapping Anarchy centre. Mark currently runs the alternative community space, Rockaway Park, a very unusual housing and arts centre in Somerset hosting bands, exhibitions, and visions of alternative ways of living. He also set up and helps run The Chapel of Unrest, a crowd funded 'monument' to non-conformity, creativity and diversity in the heart of Jacob Rees Mogg's shire.

Leah Gordon is an artist, curator, and writer. Her work explores the intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Enclosure Acts, and the creation of the British working-class. Gordon’s work amplifies ‘histories from below’ and recognises the role of carnival, folk traditions, grassroots religion in both performing and sustaining radical histories. Gordon’s film and photographic work has been exhibited internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Dak’art Biennale and the National Portrait Gallery, UK. In 2025 she exhibited her new work, Monument to the Vanquished Peasant, which was an exploration of the enclosures, at the Herbert Museum as part of the Coventry Biennial, and published a corresponding book on the subject, Common People.

The illustrated talk and Q&A (approx 90 min) will be followed by music in the bar, with music that informed and inspired the times.

Priority and discounted booking for Hackney Society members open. 

General booking from 30th June. If you would like to join Hackney Society you can do so here.