A sukkah is a Jewish tradition, built during the festival of Sukkot, in September/October. It is a temporary, fragile structure, with a roof made of only organic material, built to mark the end of the harvest. Traditionally Jews eat all their meals and sleep in the sukkah for the entire week, as well as inviting guests. The East London Sukkah takes its cue from this tradition of hospitality: building a sukkah that is not purely a space for Jews but for people of all faiths and cultures to meet, eat, talk and create.

Traditionally Sukkot are private structures, but the East London Sukkah turns this on its head by creating a public space for exchange - a space for dialogue, learning and activism. The design is comprised entirely of organic, local and reused materials. The walls will be built out of recycled pallets and reclaimed wood from Ridley Road Market in Dalston, the natural materials of the roof from local allotments and growing spaces, and textiles from The East London Mosque. The build will involve members of the local community who it is hoped will take ownership of the structure.

A week-long programme of meals, talks, discussion, performance and ritual will be curated to take place in the structure.

The aim is to create a place where visitors can imagine, and discuss a world after oil, financial meltdown - a post-capitalist society. We wish to pose questions such as: How will we live? How will we rebuild a connection with nature? How can we eat, provide shelter and gain warmth?

Hosted by Spitalfields City Farm, The East London Sukkah programme will focus on food ethics, urban agriculture, the politics of migration, the interaction of London's myriad religious and ethnic communities, and how such a dialogue can be a force for activism.

The East End of London was once the centre of Jewish life in Britain. It is now a great centre of Muslim life. Projects that connect the two communities, on a grassroots level, especially in innovative ways, are few and far between. The East London Sukkah goes beyond interfaith dialogue towards a new paradigm of interfaith action. Different groups will come together, not just to find out what they have in common, but to discover what resources their respective traditions contain for activism and for discovering alternative ways of living.

The design and build of The East London Sukkah will be led by Heather Ring (The Union Street Urban Orchard / The Wayward Plant Registry), Thomas Lindner (The Dalston Barn / The Kindest Group), artist Orly Orbach and Thomas Kendall (The Union Street Urban Orchard).

See the full schedule of East London Sukkah events 

The East London Sukkah is a result of a unique partnership between Jewdas, Openvizor, The East London Mosque, The Wayward Plant Registry and The Kindest Group. Additional supporters include The Spitalfields City Farm, JHub, Jeneration, and Tower Hamlets Arts & Culture.

The East London Sukkah's Partners:

Jewdas is a radical Jewish/Post-Jewish collective dedicated to satirising much of the Jewish world and suggesting
imaginative and outlandish paths that Judaism might take. At much at home putting on squat parties and studying Torah, equally interested in the East End Anarchists and the Zapatistas, Jewdas veers from the frivolous to the profound in an instant and is never content to stay still for long. At the heart of its work is a forceful reclaiming of Jewishness from its conservative advocates, and restoring the great traditions of its dreamers, subversives, cosmopolitans and counter-culturalists. Whatever your background if you: prefer stirring things up to keeping the peace, prefer dreaming of the utopian rather than settling for the prosaic, and think that culture and ethnicity should be springboards for overthrowing the state, then you're a Jewdaser at heart. Let's storm the barricades together.

Openvizor is the co-producer and lead funding partner of The East London Sukkah. Openvizor is an international
arts and cultural organisation and platform that supports and manages collaborative projects and practice development across borders, cultures and disciplines, connecting and celebrating individuals, communities and organisations around the world. Openvizor plans for 2010 include a new online platform, launching in the summer with our own technology focusing on the dynamics of collaboration. We continue our programme of exhibitions, festivals and projects with institutes, academia and practitioners in urbanism, fine art, performing arts and film, cultural activism and heritage in Europe, the Americas, Middle East, Africa and Asia; including collaborations in London, Istanbul, Paris, Amman, Kingston, Bogota, Dhaka, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Ramallah and Doha.

The Wayward Plant Registry is a collective of landscape architects, architects, artists and guerrilla gardeners that create temporary gardens and social exchanges. The Registry has been included in the exhibitions Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet at the Barbican London, and Actions: What You Can Do With the City, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture Montreal and the Graham Foundation Chicago. Recently, the Registry designed and produced The Union Street Urban Orchard, co-delivered with The Architecture Foundation and the London Festival of Architecture.

The East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre is in the heart of Tower Hamlets, a diverse borough with a rich history, and home to the UK's largest Muslim community. Our vision is to provide a range of holistic, culturally sensitive services for the communities of London, drawing on our Islamic values and heritage, with a view to improving quality of life and enhancing community cohesion.

The Kindest Group are designing and delivering intentional spaces of kindness. Spaces are kind when they actively foster consideration, cooperation, communication and conciliation. These spaces can exist in the material
or virtual world but usually embrace both.

Additional supporters include The Spitalfields City Farm, JHub, Jeneration, and Tower Hamlets Arts & Culture.