The Martha Street Experience

The Martha Street Experience is the coming together of experiences of young people, local mothers, business-owners and community elders as they express their fears, frustration and endearment with Shadwell E1, London. Currently, Martha Street has become a “Hotspot” for drug dealing and consumption, prostitution and petty crime.

The Shadwell Youth Club finds itself at the centre of unsafe surroundings with young people threatened by local dealers returning from mosques, to youth workers finding knives hidden on the Centre’s allotment, to dealers selling in broad-daylight to their clients in front of the club as home-schooling mothers arrive with their children.

With public services stretched beyond acceptable levels, Police are now only reacting when there is a “serious threat or instance of violence” with all other matters are deferred to “a later date”. The Martha Street Experience builds a selection of stories of 1st hand experiences of violence, threat and intimidation. The film reconstructed scenes with young people from the local youth club set in actual locations in Stereoscopic Virtual Reality (VR).

The immersive experience that virtual reality creates will invite the viewer to literally walk in the shoes of those suffering the very real anti-social problems in the Martha Street area. Producer Atif Ghani and VR Director Peter Collis spent several weeks filming and working closely with Abu Hasanath of The Rooted Forum in gaining the insights and stories of local Shadwell residents.

Peter and Atif also ran several Virtual Reality and brainstorming workshop where youth group members were introduced to the VR format and encouraged to work with the production team filming and playing the role of on-screen cast. The COVID-19 moment stymied the opportunity to screen the film at The Tarling East Community Centre for regular centre clients, local community and business people, as well Tower Hamlets councillors and police.