Viewing Backyard Biennial: East

East side stories.

Whitechapel Gallery turns its attention to the neighbourhood around it this summer with Backyard Biennial: East, a new free arts festival unfolding across East London for eight weeks. Initiated by the gallery in collaboration with more than 40 local partners, the festival brings exhibitions, walks, workshops, film screenings, food, music and late-night events into a wider conversation about the East End’s past and present.

At the heart of the programme is East of the Aldgate Pump, a group exhibition across Whitechapel Gallery’s first three galleries. The title refers to the historic water pump that once marked an informal border between the City of London and the East End, making it a neat starting point for a show about the communities and the identities that have shaped this part of London across generations.

The exhibition brings together 12 local, national and international artists, including Marwan Bassiouni, Jyll Bradley, Denzil Forrester, Rene Matić, Reetu Sattar, susan pui san lok and Rehana Zaman. Works move across painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation, with sections exploring migration, city life, kinship and the role food plays in holding heritage and belonging together.

The wider festival spills well beyond the gallery. OITIJ-JO Collective presents TUFAN, an evolving exhibition and live programme inspired by the Bangla word for storm, while Fozia Ismail’s A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers centres the endangered Somali wedding basket as a vessel for memory, climate and tradition. Elsewhere, visitors can follow walking tours, join community workshops, add their own migration stories to the Migration Museum’s growing collection, or drop into Alba Thursday Lates for a more social version of the gallery evening. Running throughout the summer, Backyard Biennial: East makes a persuasive case for paying closer attention to what is already around us.