Maggie Pinhorn has a long history of  involvement and innovation in Community Arts in London and in the East End in particular. Currently her organisation Alternative Arts runs Photomonth — the East London Festival of Photography.

Maggie started her career in the film industry but, dissatisfied with it, became an early pioneer of using film and video making in the community.  The first film she made with a mixed group of young people in Tower Hamlets — Tunde’s Film — was a seminal film of the period. The process of making the film became the basis of her setting up The Basement Project, which went on to become a major Community Arts project.