Once an industrial artery that carried coal into the city, the River Lea is now a recreational space where a community lives on the water, followed by Mattia Corato through East London in Along the River Lea.
Mattia Corato, born in Milan in 1983 and now living in London, moved to Clapton a few years ago knowing little about the River Lea or the meadows and woods around it. He began to cycle the waterways, and found what he calls “a deeply urban nature, dotted with human traces and overgrown spaces.” The pictures are captioned with places along the Lea, among them Edmonton, Hackney Marshes, Tottenham Marshes and Stratford.
Historically, Corato notes, the Lea shaped the development of East London's urban landscape; during the industrial revolution it was a vital artery for coal and raw materials moving into the city. The area around the river has since transformed into a recreational space, what he describes as an unexpected green eruption in the heart of the city.
The people living along the riverbanks are, for Corato, a vibrant part of the river's modern identity. “Some are drawn to the freedom of life on the water, while others seek affordable living in an area where housing costs are rising,” he writes. Both impulses, freedom and affordability, are what put people on the water.
The river, Corato writes, mirrors the cultural diversity and distinctive character of the East London neighborhoods through which it flows, and offers a precious escape from the grey, fast pace of the city, a place, in his words, where nature's rhythm blends with human life. Jessie Wender, of The New York Times, selected the series as a Critics' Choice Top Pick for 2026, drawn to “the wildness of urban nature, and the surprising moments captured along the banks and in the water.”
