Hackney's divine holograms

A hologram manufacturer has taken over a derelict east London church to create a multi-media arts centre.

The gallery, being built in the neo-Gothic church of St Augustine, Hackney, will provide space for temporary exhibitions of holograms as well as other visual and performance arts. Richmond Holographic Studios is carrying out the renovation helped by Hackney council and a pounds 300,000 City Grant from the Government .

Edwina Orr and David Trayner, the directors, said provision for the 3-D art-form is lacking in London and that their new gallery will act as a magnet for people fascinated by holography as well as those interested in other styles of art.

The pounds 1.2m it cost to buy the church, its annex, vicarage and hall has come partly from their work in Japan, where they sold British holographic technology and trained the Japanese.

St Augustine's Church found fame in the Sixties when the vicar offered his hall for meetings of Hell's Angels who repaid his kindness by doing charity work.

The gallery should please the large numbers of artists who have recently moved to Hackney, which according to a local councillor, has more resident artists than any other similarly sized borough in Europe.

Richmond Holographic has more than 600 exhibits and has produced images of 'everyone from company directors to Boy George'.