SATURDAY MAY 9TH TO MONDAY MAY 25TH
OPEN FOR VIEWING 12-6PM WEDNESDAY TO SUNDAY
Werner Herzog has a list of 24 instructions for filmmakers — no. 10 is "Thwart institutional cowardice."
We made a film the institutions wouldn't fund. It helped trigger a multi-billion pound energy revolution but we're still paying off the debt. One of his other rules comes in:
"Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief."
We've raised over £500k across six campaigns. No gallery. No broadcaster. No gatekeeper. Just community.
But last year we needed something different.
We were trying to finish Power Station — our film about building a community renewable energy project on our street in Walthamstow. We applied to the institutions that are supposed to support exactly this kind of work.
They said no, over and over — despite the fact we had built a community of around 20,000 people and had proof of demand.
So we did what we always do. We asked our community instead.
We issued a 5 year bond. Teachers, artists, activists, neighbours, citizens from up and down the land lent us the money to finish the film the institutions wouldn't touch. We raised £100k. On top of that I borrowed £50k from a bank. £150,000 to get it done.
What Happened Next
Power Station premiered at Sheffield DocFest. It has so far screened in 130+ cinemas across the UK. It's been requested by over 300 communities. And it's still going. It's been widely lauded as a manifesto for street by street renewable energy transformation. The government have committed billions to this — and it's great to know we had a part to play in this.
We wouldn't change a thing.
But we're still £150,000 in debt to the people who made it possible.
Everything Must Go
On May 23rd we're holding an auction at Kairos, London. The van — Big Bang 2, containing the physical remains of £1.2 million in abolished high interest debt. Prints. Artefacts. 10 years of work under the hammer.
If we succeed, every penny goes back to our community. Four years early.
We don't know if it will raise what we need. That's the jeopardy. That's also the point. This is what it looks like to do radical work outside the system — you make the bet, you honour the commitment, and you go again. New film. New community. New bonds.
Everything Must Go — the van, the prints, the relics.
And yes — the entire fossil fuel economic system too. Obviously.
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OPENING NIGHT PARTY
FRIDAY 8TH MAY 6PM TO 11PM
We're celebrating the opening of our take-over of Kairos ground floor space with cocktails, a live musical set by Afro-Brazilian roots musicians Aleh Ferreira, George Fogel and Lizzie Ogle, and other amusements.
Dan & Hilary's installation, Everything Must Go, tells the story of our recent economic and energy interventions – the multilayered works that became the feature documentary films Power Station (2025) and Bank Job (2021).
Bank Job instigated a community heist on an unjust financial system – setting up a rebel bank on a high street and printing money to cancel £1.2 million of predatory debt. Power Station saw us imagining themselves as both Central Bank and Central Government to unleash a green new deal in microcosm and involved rooftop sleeping, sunflowers and singing in the pursuit of energy democracy.
Entry to the opening night party is free but space will be limited so booking is essential.
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SCREENING OF POWER STATION
SATURDAY 9TH MAY 6PM FOR 6:30PM
Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell's 2021 feature documentary Bank Job explored the truth about money and debt and instigated a community heist on an unjust financial system – setting up a rebel bank on a high street and printing money to cancel £1.2 million of predatory debt.
For most of May, Dan and Hilary will be taking over our ground floor space with their installation Everything Must Go, which features "Big Bang 2" and other artefacts from Bank Job as well as from their other multi-layered 2025 work Power Station.
This screening of Bank Job, which takes place the night before we hold a live auction of the contents of Everything Must Go, will be followed by a discussion with Dan and Hilary.
The evening will include a break for a one-pot vegan supper.
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SCREENING OF BANK JOB
FRIDAY 22ND MAY 6PM FOR 6:30PM
Power Station began in the depths of lockdown with the question ‘'what could we do from where we live, with the people around us, to build power - of energy and imagination?"
Inspired by lockdown mutual aid initiatives, we decided to turn our street in Walthamstow into an energy-generating powerhouse – a prototype for a new way of living, with the hope of galvanising a wider push towards sustainable alternatives.
Power Station charts the turbulent journey, from pitching the idea to our neighbours and sleeping on the roof of our home to raising finance and launching a bid for a Christmas number one single.
Smart, funny and inspiring, the film shows community building in action and the power of art in changing minds about what could be possible.
This screening of Power Station - which takes place the night after the Opening Night Party for Everything Must Go - will be followed by a one-pot vegan supper and discussion with Dan and Hilary.
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LIVE AUCTION
EVERYTHING MUST GO
SATURDAY 23RD MAY - TIMINGS TBC
Before the show closes, we'll be auctioning selected works at this live auction on Friday May 23rd at Kairos, as well as via a digital auction that will open in the run up to the live event and close on the night.
LIVE AUCTION IN THE ROOM
A number of items will be sold live from the rostrum during this live auction event on Friday May 23rd. Lots include the original sleeping bags and jacket worn on the Walthamstow rooftop during the Power Station campaign, a bottle of vodka from Dan and Hilary's first feature How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire, and an "experience" TBD. Hammer prices become the score.
DIGITAL AUCTION
Big Bang 2 is being sold digitally specifically so that overseas collectors, remote bidders and institutions who can't be in the room for the live auction can also bid. The auction is open to the world. (A link to join the online auction will be posted here shortly.)
THE TARGET IS £250,000
- £100,000 to repay the community bondholders who funded the edit of Power Station.
- £50,000 to clear the bank loan Dan took out personally to keep the project alive.
- £100,000 to start building the next community-owned Power Station, in Clacton-on-Sea.
The blown-up van from Bank Job is being put to work one more time — as the asset that repays the bondholders of Power Station. Every lot sold is a step toward a bondholder paid back, a debt cleared, and a brick in the next power station.
EVERYTHING MUST GO
The title cuts two ways. Everything in the room must go — prints, paintings, the van, the lot. And so must everything that made the work necessary: the fossil-fuel economy, the extractive banks, the debt machine. Clearing the studio is the easy part. Clearing the system is the work.
Everything Must Go!
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If the room delivers, the bondholders get paid, the loan clears, and the remaining proceeds seed the next build: a community-owned power station in Clacton-on-Sea.
Clacton matters. It's Nigel Farage's constituency and the symbolic heartland of the fossil-fuel-funded campaign against renewables in Britain. The argument pushed there — loudly, and with serious money behind it — is that clean energy is an elite project done to working-class towns rather than with them.A community-owned power station, funded by ordinary people and returning its value to the street it sits on, is the direct answer to that argument. Not an op-ed. A building. Same method as Walthamstow, new town, harder ground.
The auction closes one chapter and opens the next in the same night.
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