During the Covid-19 pandemic, Peer transformed its street-facing windows with a bold and colourful message of hope. The ten-metre glazed façade on Hoxton Street combines rainbows with lines from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Peer used the ubiquitous rainbow symbol of gratitude and support for UK care workers with striking graphics by Fraser Muggeridge Studio. Miranda’s lines from The Tempest also appeared in Turkish, Polish, Spanish, French, Chinese and Bengali, reflecting some of the more widely spoken languages in Hackney.
The historical and contemporary links between William Shakespeare and Hoxton are strong. These are acknowledged today in many of the local names around the Arden Estate where Peer is located, and the estate itself is named after The Forest of Arden. Across the road is The Macbeth pub, nearby is Regan Way, and much of the housing is also named after Shakespearean characters such as Caliban Tower or Juliet, Falstaff, Celia, Oberon and Miranda House.
Ingrid Swenson, Peer Director at the time said: ‘The Tempest has provided the inspiration for this project, particularly as it is widely held that the greater the storm, the brighter the rainbow. Shakespeare is known to have continued working through outbreaks of Bubonic plague when it hit London in the early seventeenth century, and Peer hopes that Miranda’s words of wonder express optimism about the possibility of new beginnings’.
