Hello, hello, hello - what's going on here then? When we first moved into our shop in Sclater street, Superette was next door to a condemned building, home to overgrown weeds and a family of foxes. Until this summer, it was boarded shut, crumbling and unloved. Then one night on the way home from a meal in one of Brick Lane's famed curry houses, we were invited in through the front door by a tall sharp dude wearing tartan check trousers and green snakeskin boots. We went inside; it was dark and damp, dimly lit by candlelight and morbid charcoal skull drawings stared at us from the wall.

A few nights later, we held the launch of our newly refurbished Superette - you can read about it here. Andre, the gallery owner called by to see how our shop was looking. This time he was wearing a fur jacket and two diver's watches on his left arm. He told us he'd changed the locks on the doors and thereby secured squatter's rights to open up the Sclater Street Art Gallery. And he was planning to live above it. We weren't sure that it was structurally sound, but he felt confident enough to give it a try.

Over the past few months he's raided skips, rescued discarded furniture, mended broken chairs - you won't believe what some people will throw away - and fitted out the main room with comfortable seating and a cocktail bar. Only, the sign above the door proclaims "This is Not a Bar". Because selling beer and providing a speakeasy for people to smoke in until the early hours would be illegal. His opening hours are 9pm - 3am Thursday - Sunday.

His latest surprise was to invite local graffiti artists to pimp his crib for Halloween, making it the most photographed building in the Hoxton / Shoreditch / Brick Lane playground. Our shop is sandwiched between this building, and the heavily grafittied railway arches that run all the way to Bethnal Green Road and Shoreditch High Street. It's easily the most colourful street in East London, drawing crowds from the Media hungry for an eyeball-scorching backdrop - we've lost count of the fashion photo-shoots and low-budget pop promos we've dodged past on the way to the bagel shop.

We've been enjoying Andre's antics, his unique dress sense (today, silver welder's goggles, mohawk and leather jumpsuit) and the audacity of his enterprise. So, is it a squat? Is it an art gallery? Is it a bar? Well, we're still not sure... Those windows don't look too well insulated and with no electricity, he's going to find it a cold winter, but we hope he'll stay longer and keep bamboozling us.

Posted by: Em on November 26, 2007 8:55 PM

Posted by: cassie on November 27, 2007 10:39 AM

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