We Don’t Know What This Is began with a Covid fever dream of people gathering at dawn on Hackney Marshes to watch the sunrise together.

We Don’t Know What This Is began with a Covid fever dream of people gathering at dawn on Hackney Marshes to watch the sunrise together. Three years later, five people have become hundreds, with more than a thousand connected through the WhatsApp group and thousands more following on Instagram. It remains free, open and gently self-organising: people bring music, movement, food, art, silence or simply themselves.

This exhibition brings together posters designed for each gathering by David Johnston and photographs by Tom Price, who has documented their people, weather, strangeness and beauty. The posters include two evolving visual systems which translate the precise conditions of each gathering; its date, location, sunrise, astronomical twilight and changing length of day, into form.

But really, this is an exhibition about spaces open to all. The Marshes and the library are two of the few places where anyone can arrive without buying anything, being invited or needing to explain why they are there. Bringing the gatherings into Homerton Library is an invitation to meet more of Hackney, and for more of Hackney to help shape whatever this becomes next.

Age group: All ages welcome

Ticket price: Free

Access information: Wheelchair accessible

Instagram: @wedontknowwhatthisis23