Open Studios and Rooftop Concerts in The Wick.

The three-day Hackney Wicked festival showcases non-traditional art created in the formerly industrial community of Hackney Wick in East London, adjacent to the rising Olympic Village.

Artists open studios and personal flats so that visitors can experience the community.

With bands performing on rooftops and a wooden chicken torched at the end of the event, this unique festival stands out amongst the vast number of other annual London festivals.

-Text by Christie Francis. Top three images by Rick Kauffman. Bottom images by Grace Dickinson.

Brick Lane: Meet Musician/ Artist Lewis Floyd Henry.

On Brick Lane in East London, local resident Lewis Floyd Henry, 33, wears his best pin-striped suit and tie, plays a Fender Stratocaster and pounds a custom foot drum.

Crowds surround the one-man band to listen and take photographs. They admire his man-made stage, with his amp bungee-tied to a hand truck. Henry, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jimi Hendrix, puts on a Hendrix show by covering songs likes Purple Haze and All Along the Watchtower.

“Watch this,” Henry says as he uses the top of his drum to open a bottle of beer.

Henry is not all gimmicks though. He just recorded his first original demo.

Street music is not the only form of public art that Henry performs. His graffiti tag “Kn0wn” can be seen throughout London on everything from the Underground to trash cans. The tag is even featured in “Time Out London Short Stories” in a personal essay about graffiti art in London.

When Henry isn’t tagging the streets of London or playing music along Brick Lane, he can be seen playing at festivals such as The Jazz n’ Blues, The Big Chill and Leeds Festival.

- Text and bottom image by Meghan Agnew. Top image by Grace Dickinson.