Go East: More than a quarter

It's not quite Montparnasse - there are more caffs than cafes - but this is London's artists' quarter. Forget Cork Street. There's more of the real cutting edge of contemporary British art here, in a twenty square mile patch of the East End that's home to the studios of over 800 of our brightest young hopefuls. Not since Sickert, Fry and Epstein rubbed shoulders in Fitzrovia has the city seen such a concentration of creative talent. And once a year, from May to the end of June, artists from Greenwich to Stratford open their studio doors to all-comers. It's an unique chance to gain first-hand experience of what goes on in an artist's studio, to discover what's new and to spot work that just might be the 'next big thing'. Among the better-known names with studios in the East End are artists as diverse as Mark Wallinger, Anthony Whishaw, Laura Godfrey-Isaacs, Herve Constant and Cecilia Vargas.

Since the first joint Whitechapel Open and East London Open Studios venture six years ago, the Whitechapel Gallery has held a concurrent exhibition of works by those East-enders considered by a changing panel of artists, critics and curators to be the cream of the current crop. A visit to the gallery show, larger than ever this year with work by 250 artists, and its overspill at the recently-opened Atlantis Upper Gallery in nearby Brick Lane, makes a good prelude to the bigger picture provided by a grand tour.

It's a daunting prospect. The organisers have done their best, but with fifty studios open to the public, it's still hard to know where to begin. The safest bet is to pick up a guide book (pounds 2) from the Whitechapel and start with one of the free bus tours which the gallery organises every Saturday and Sunday. An average five hour day (you can opt for a half) might take you from the atelier conversions of Cable Street and Pixley Street in the morning to the old warehouses of Fawe Street and Limehouse Cut in the afternoon. By 5.15, if you've stayed the course, you will have seen 73 artists at work, will probably have spoken to a few of them and might even have learnt something about what it's really like to be an artist.

Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Whitechapel High St, E1 (071-377 01107). Also at Atlantis Upper Gallery, 146 Brick Lane, E1. Daily 11-5; free. Guide to the Open Studios pounds 2.