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HOT is delighted to be the recipient of a Google grant to support local journalism during Covid-19.
HOT is delighted to be the recipient of a Google grant to support local journalism during Covid-19.
Axisweb member artists have begun their residency in an empty shop in Priory Meadow Shopping Centre, Hastings. They’ve been collaborating during lockdown with the theme of Nature as a Shared Vision. Artist Amanda Jobson writes about this new temporary space for art in Priory Meadow shopping centre.
If you’re out for a stroll along Hastings seafront, keep an eye open for a series of posters running the length of the seafront from the town centre to just beyond London Road. The posters, which were commissioned by Women’s Voice, mark the 50th anniversary of the first national Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) Conference, which was held at Ruskin College, Oxford, in 1970. Ann Kramer, chair of Women’s Voice, explains.
Although we are always surrounded by colour, the changing tones of the sea, sky and trees the world has seemed a little bleak of late. So it is interesting to be reminded of the strength of colour – reds, oranges, blues and greens – that can lift a mood and evoke memories. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths found colour writ large in Harriet Macaree’s paintings at Hastings Arts Forum.
Stuart Christie, a memorable former Hastings resident, died last weekend at the age of 74. Nick Terdre remembers a remarkable man and friend.
The arrival of Covid-19 has worsened the chronic problems of homelessness and rough sleeping which already afflicted Hastings. HOT’s Nick Terdre talked to Cllr Andy Batsford, Hastings Borough Council’s lead for housing and homelessness, about how the situation has been tackled since the virus turned our lives upside down, and the worrying prospects now looming up.
The government has finally accepted that if test and trace is to work properly, local expertise and resources need to be incorporated alongside the centralised system, though there is as yet no indication that local authorities will be given extra funding to do local contact tracing. Separately the Department of Health and Social Care is said to be planning a merger of NHS Test and Trace with the pandemic response work of Public Health England. Research and graphics by Russell Hall, text by Nick Terdre.
During the long wait for a bus, local artist and writer, Maureen Connett, has been pondering what can be done to cheer up the town centre, in particular the bus stops at Queens Road. She would have liked to share her art portraying local places in Hastings on the empty spaces at the bus shelters, but it looks like the Pandemic may have put paid to a ‘laudable initiative’. We can take another look at Maureen’s art here.