BAAM 2025 is here

Zeroh & Hell Yeah invite you to support the local creative economy by visiting the Bottle Alley Art Market this Saturday. Erica Smith encourages you to attend this free public event which showcases fine art from curated local and national artists – and includes live music and performance.

BAAM (Bottle Alley Art Market) claims to be the biggest beachside art market in the UK. It’s certainly the longest – stretching half a kilometre along Bottle Alley – conveniently sheltered from the sun and rain and offering a visual and linear shopping experience. This year it will once again fill the historic and iconic lower prom bridging Hastings and St Leonards with 60+ fine artists showing and selling their work. There’ll be live performances, live drawing, live music and DJs creating a thoroughly unique experience in a thoroughly unique heritage building.

If you have space on your wall for a piece of original art then come along on the bank holiday Saturday and buy something new and support your local creative economy.

Now in its third year, the Bottle Alley Art Market (or BAAM) has earned a reputation for supporting artists at all points in their careers but has a particular focus on showcasing grassroots and younger artists, with a supportive offer of some free places to those in the early stages of their career who have found the experience to be transformative in some cases.

Working with artist and curator Lorna Hamilton Brown the BAAM team made the difficult decisions of choosing the artists from over 180 applications.

HALF A KILOMETER OF FINE ART ON SALE
This year there will be 70 artists showing and selling their work along the north glass wall of Bottle Alley. In a linear gallery style art show overlooking the beach. We have artists ranging from the young age of 12 years old, an absent Ukranian artist being represented by his family, live sit down portraits by extremely accomplished portrait artist Xinchu Zhang amonst a full range of other fine artists from Hastings, St Leonards and beyond.

LIVE ART
Amongst those taking part we are pleased to welcome back Tula Parker and Xinchu Zhang who created a real buzz last year around their live portraiture, creating quick pencil and ink portraits on request of the visiting public. We feel this fits in with the traditional seaside portrait you find at any coastal resort of the summer months but undertaken by former a Portrait Artist of the Year contestant (series 8, 2021).

LIVE PERFORMANCE
Live performance art will be featured, again, from artists Jude Montague and Caroline Gregory after last years amazing interventions had a moving effect on the atmosphere of the event. We are also expecting some of the usual spontaneous pop up performances too.

LIVE MUSIC
‘The Last Bastion’ , the round area nearest the Pier, will be returning as a live band, DJ and bar area. Performing live in The Last Bastion we have Simon and the Pope and friends with mesmeric drum, bass and vocal, there’ll also be a number of Dj’s playing throughout the day including James Endeacott from Soho Radio.

Artists Dave Reading, Shuby and Kristin Watt-Bonar will be decorating the ‘Last Bastion’ with their artworks, come and meet them they will be selling their work in the bar area.

LIVE HISTORY
This year we will be focusing on the heritage and we are extremely proud to once again host our local historian and academic researcher Andre Palfrey-Martin, also a radio DJ and a champion of the town’s heritage, he can answer all questions about the heritage and history of this wonderful space. You can find Andre in his vintage living room somewhere along the way, sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Andre is a champion of Sidney Little, the genius architect who designed Bottle Alley.

ART ON THE PROM
Another development to this year’s event is an evolved collaboration focusing on fabrics and flags. We always mark the day with flags but this year a special installation will feature the work of Mew Welch, David Harris and ZEROH.

This years artists are:
Oleksandr Manoilo/ Katie Ray/ Leah Germann/ Susan Diamond/ Mark Fisher/ Luke Garvey/ Tristan Lathey/ Scott Garrett/ Luciena Howard/ Grow up/ Wallpaper by Deborah Bowness/ ZEEL/ Lucy Taylor/ Lewis Floyd Henry/ Giles Round/ Abi Moffat/ Judith Douglas/ Nicola Jackson / Adrian Cox/ Elaine Mullings/ Show Pony/ Shona Waldron/ Robert Horsley/ mew/ ChicaAzulArte / Tom Ormond/ Alexandra Ffion/ Rossanne Pellegrino/ Stuart McIntyre/ Bobbi Merrifield / Vanessa Fowler/ The Unwelcome Collection/ Kathleen Foley/ Xinchu Zhang/ Joan Glasgow-Ashton/ caroline macey R E/ Madeleine Smith/ KATHARINE O’BRIEN/ Christy Taylor/ Morokoth Fournier/ Anne-Marie Watson/ Jasmine Harper-Jones / Peter Quinnell/ Dialer/ Word to Bossman/ Rory Farragher/ Sanders de Roeper/ Tula Parker/ Kit Claughton/ Leslie J Moran/ Sophie Malpas/ Dee Harvey/ Mat Riley/ Arno Rupert Maasdorp/ Haus of Lucy/ Katherine Reekie/ Ross Domoney/ george butler/ Mike Williams/ Bobbi Merrifield/ Laura Ferry/ Lookie Eyes/ ANTI-PERFECTION/ AmbitiousOutsiders / Annie Lawson/ MossWood/ Jon Jon Renouf/ Ben McDonald

For those of you who have never been to Bottle Alley – it is the 480m-long walkway between Hastings Pier and Warrior Square in St.Leonards. It’s tiled with thousands of bits of coloured glass, making it one of the most unique venues in the UK for an art fair—and definitely the only one with sea views on one side and an early example of sustainable art on the other acting as a backdrop for the artists display.

The market has been going from strength to strength since it launched. Last year’s edition saw over 12,000 people drop by in just one weekend and more than 800 artworks found new homes.

What to Expect:

• Over 60 selected artists, showing and selling their work
• Live drawing, DJs, and performances throughout the day
• A beautiful mix of professional artists, emerging talent and first-timers
• A unique art buying spectacle
• Support for our creative economy

This is not your average craft fair—BAAM focuses on fine art and contemporary practice in a laid-back, inclusive atmosphere. Come and buy art and support the artists development and confidence, soak it all in, there’s something for everyone.

Bottle Alley is a 480m long under promenade walkway bridging the English coastal towns of Hastings and St.Leonards on sea, in East Sussex. constructed between November 1933 and May 1934 by ‘concrete king’ Sidney Little, the alley has 113 columns which open out to the sea and concrete panels embedded with tens of thousands of pieces of glass, giving the space its name, on its north side.

The alley has been used as a set for shows including Channel 4 series Close to Me starring Christopher Ecclestion, the films Is Anybody There? starring Michael Caine, Roadkill starring Hugh Laurie, Neil Jordan’s Byzantium and the Netflix/BBC drama Girl/ Haji.

ZEROH are Daniel Hardiker and Neil Hetherington. They have been creating installation and artworks in Bottle Alley since 2015 and have just completed a two year residency in the space where they created the installation WaveLength, founded the Bottle Alley Art Market, created a community lightshow to music event and engaged over 380 volunteers in the upkeep of the artwork WaveLength. They also created a website to represent the space and raise awareness of the heritage and to promote it, bottlealley.org.

Gina Hewitt is an Independent Operations Consultant and Project/Event Manager with 20 years experience in live events and creative projects. She has a passion for working alongside and supporting art, design, fashion and lifestyle clients with the practicalities of managing their events, projects and strategies.

Bottle Alley runs along the seafront from Hastings Pier to St Leonards Warrior Square
It is accessible to wheelchairs at both ends
BAAM is this Saturday – 23 August 2025 from 10 am until 6 pm
You can check out the artists on the BAAM Instagram page

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