Coastal Currents overview

Hastings and St Leonards annual arts festival, Coastal Currents, started last weekend and HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths has been going through the programme.

Coastal Currents ranging across St Leonards, Hastings and Rother is now in its thirteenth year. I first came across it five years ago and each year  it seems to be getting better and better; it seems more ambitious in its scope of  curating and commissioning local, regional and  international artists for installations and community based projects – as well as the artists in their open studios.

If the festival was ever thought of  as a parochial community festival that time has long past. Director, Sarah Yates, who has been involved over the past four years said “Coastal currents aims to provide a platform to showcase local, national and international work. Over the year we offer opportunities for student mentoring and workshops, talks and symposia to encourage the artists to showcase their work in a professional way. We tend to curate work with artists that respond to Hastings geographically or sociologically.”

There is also the element of surprise by bringing events into alternative spaces.  Sarah Yates remembers “Last year short films were shown in a container, this year the Festival has gained access to the rarely opened St Mary in the Castle.  The building’s prospects are in some doubt and a project such as the Seaside Hotel could possibly help future funding.”

From what little I have seen and read many of  the events are surprising and imaginative. I seem to pick up on the magical, contemplative, memories come in to play. Light and shade, shadows. And stories. Always stories.

The opening event Anima was a shadowy dance with light in around and on top of  the Jerwood. In Grosvenor Gardens  Flow (see HOT’s ‘Aeolian Flow’ article) is a wonderful meditative flow of silk flags changing in the wind and light, children chasing and laughing through the enchanting, silk forest of flags; the Seaside Hotel (for one night only) at St Mary in the Castle gives rein to memory with deserted spaces leaving traces of the past and present in the shadows;  Telling Stories at the Hastings Museum will almost certainly spark and reflect individual memories and personal experiences. And Alexander Bratell’s  photographs at the Conquest Hospital  entitled ‘The Sun Does Not Move – a moment of realisation that experience might be as it appears’ seems aptly relevant.

Community and interactive are also something Coastal Currents   encourage. 10×10 at Stade Hall allowing people to swap one item for another – leaving their mark and taking someone else’s little treasure.  Internationally awarded Strange Cargo embraces community running workshops, talks and exhibitions for local people to decorate their own padlocks with love tokens, messages, whatever to brought together into a sculpture called My heart belongs to Hastings. The installation of that as a permanent fixture, near Bottle Alley opposite Warrior Square, will be the Festival’s Closing Event on Sunday 23 September at 12 noon.

Then there are the other magical discoveries in the Open Studios programme. Take your own journey down twittens, shadowy side streets, into back garden studios, a pebbly walk to beach huts. You never know what you might find, all art is personal, sometimes it simply doesn’t appeal but often it can be invigorating and inspiring.

And then just as you thought it was coming to an end, the festival extends into Art in Romney Marsh – another magical, mystery tour around the medieval churches on the Marsh.

Explore, discover and enjoy the festival. Visit the Coastal Currents website for more information.

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