In my photographic essay Carnival of Protest, I document the return — and possible final edition — of the Hackney Street Carnival, one of London’s most vital cultural events. Shot in my signature immersive style, the images bring the viewer close to the movement, the rhythm, the dissent and the celebration. This work sits at the intersection of reportage, performance, and protest photography, tracing not only a street parade but a living archive of community resilience.

Hackney Carnival has roots stretching back to the 1970s, evolving from local Caribbean-led processions into what was often called the “last lap” of Notting Hill. Over the decades it has become London’s second-largest carnival after Notting Hill. Hackney Council+2North East Londoner+2

In 2019 the event drew over 80,000 people during its full-day celebration from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. North East Londoner+3Hackney Council News+3Country and Town House+3 Council records place the attendance in 2019 above 88,000. Hackney Council

In 2024, the carnival was held on Sunday 22 September from 12 pm to 7 pm as a family-focused parade. Hackney Council The procession route in 2024 extended through Mare Street, covering approximately three miles, and concluded in London Fields. Continental Drifts+2Hackney Council+2 Over 1,000 participants from 28 carnival and community groups marched in the parade. Continental Drifts

But this revival came under severe financial constraints. In 2024, the council budgeted £1 million for the event. Hackney Council+1 This was a steep rise in cost: earlier budgets recorded around £573,000 in 2019 and £256,000 in 2018. Hackney Council The growing infrastructural, safety, and compliance demands have pushed the event into a precarious space. Hackney Council+2Time Out Worldwide+2

In early 2025 Hackney Council cut the carnival funding by £500,000, signalling the event is cancelled for the “foreseeable future.” Time Out Worldwide Without new funding models, such as a trust-based or hybrid public-private model, the carnival may not return. Time Out Worldwide In 2025, instead of a full street parade, smaller community-led events and band performances are being organised. Love Hackney

Significance & Community Impact

Hackney Carnival has long served not just as spectacle, but as social and political expression. Especially in East London’s shifting urban landscape, the event offers a counter-narrative: a space where Black diasporic communities and diverse local residents reclaim public space, assert cultural identity, and voice critique of inequality, displacement, and austerity. The carnival’s ritual of procession, costume, sound, dance and public gathering carries echoes of protest, liberation, and visibility.

For many in Hackney, the carnival is a vital thread in the social fabric. It invites participation from schools, arts groups, bands, youth collectives, sound systems and community organisations. The potential loss of the street carnival marks more than a budget cut — it risks eroding a communal locus of creative energy, intergenerational memory, and cultural inclusion.

My images aim to preserve a record of what may be lost: the rhythms, gestures, energy, and the subtle tensions that always live under the spectacle. Through close framing, personal encounters, and indelible moments of performance and crowd, I seek to bring the viewer closer to what I witnessed — the carnival as both festivity and probe into what it means to belong.

If this was indeed the last full-scale Hackney Carnival, then this project becomes part of the archive — a visual remembering of an event rooted in resistance and community.