Adventures in the Lea Valley: Documenting East London before & after the Olympics

Speaking of their work, David said: "London’s Lea Valley is strange, exciting, ugly, beautiful and unaccountably mysterious... an unplanned patchwork of nature reserves, social housing, yuppie apartments, small industries, scrap yards, football pitches, golf courses, cycle tracks, forgotten architecture and vast areas of nothing in particular...There are Londoners who are drawn to its enigmatic allure, and Londoners who don’t even know it is there."

At first Polly and David were drawn to the landscape’s peculiarities – its economic contradictions, ecological fragility and its haphazard character without really knowing how the project would finish. Over 10 years have passed since they first ventured into the Lea Valley, and with the passing of time, the project as a whole now serves to document the transformation of this once lesser-known pocket of East London.

Now available as a book, Adventures in the Lea Valley is published by Hoxton Mini Press, and contains a wealth of images from the exclusive series.

Via Creative Boom submission | All images courtesy of the artists and Hoxton Mini Press