Two art exhibitions in Hastings and St Leonards
Projects to ease Hastings’ housing crisis have been awarded levelling up funding as part of a £20m allocation to the town which also includes £2.5m earmarked for completion of the long-stalled Queensway Gateway Road. A further £20m allocation has been made to finance projects in Rother. Nick Terdre reports.
Sound Waves Community Choir is celebrating all things Blues, Soul and Motown in their Blues Brother, Soul Sister concert at the Masonic Hall in St Leonards on 27 April. The choir’s Rosalyn Ziebell describes the pleasures in store.
Hastings is extraordinary not only in the number of artists that have congregated in the town over the years but also the art genres. The town has always been supportive of those who work outside the artistic community and generate ideas and initiatives. Turner Prize nominees Project Art Works and the Artist Support Pledge are two examples, and the Stella Dore gallery is a third. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was delighted to come across its latest exhibition Stronger Together, a collaboration between international photographer, Giles Duley and four chosen artists. From different countries, the artists have taken his photographs and intervened in the images.
Project Art Works’ Illuminating the Wilderness is being screened at the British Film Institute along with No Church in the Wild and Tessellate, as part of the BFI Experimenta programme. Experimenta celebrates artist films and alternative moving-image culture; works that break with convention.
Many have wondered while walking past the elegant 12 Claremont – next door to Hastings Library–what is going to happen to it. It was intended as an extension of the library but that dream rose and fell. Well now, at last, this historic building has been acquired by Heart of Hastings CLT who will bring it back to life as a Community hub. Lauris Morgan-Griffiths went along to the celebration of its successful acquisition to learn more.