State of the Arts
To mark the 200th edition of the Hastings Independent we looked back through the archives and also asked
a number of creatives in the town to contribute a few paragraphs about their area of the arts.
Tremendously Successful
Lee Humphries
Printed Matter Bookshop
There’s certainly loads going on in this town, especially in my particular area, books and literature. Plans are already in hand for the Hastings Literary Festival in September. It will follow last autumn’s tremendously successful event which included Bexhill-born playwright and festival patron, David Hare, in conversation with former National Theatre Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner, prefaced by two poets from the Hastings Young Writers group performing their work.
Gail Borrow and her team organise the extraordinarily imaginative A Town Explores a Book and bookshops like mine put on some author events. There are a number of book clubs dotted around, we have a radical book club that meets here at Printed Matter, and a queer reading book club that meets at The Fountain pub on Queens Road.
Other book clubs tend to be groups of friends, but these can have the disadvantage that new members aren’t always welcome, as they feel it will spoil the dynamic. Bookbuster has a regular poetry event, and some pubs have started doing their own book launches – like the Marina Fountain.
There’s always lots going on in town and, of course the vibrant independent bookshop sector is a vital starting point!
“Thankfully, Zoom allowed me to reach new audiences through online talks. In the publishing industry, most of
the sales are swallowed up by a tiny percentage of authors, so we have to fight hard to get our books noticed“
Gareth E. Rees – writer
Benji Thomas, Dirty Old Gallery
Feeding Creative Yummynes
Megan Donfrancesco Reddy
The Dirty Old Gallery
This town feels like a village but with the same drive as a city. I’m third generation Hastings. I see people moving here from London and other places and feel that we should all work together, sharing ideas and projects. Those choosing to make Hastings their new home should be asking themselves “How can I be a part of all that is wonderful here?” – then we will all thrive.
The art galleries in St Leonards are so diverse. From Project 78 and Kino to Bare Bone and Electro Studios, they all offer something different. The ‘biodiversity’ of creatives in this small town is vast. Events like Coastal Currents and groups like Photo Hastings bring such positivity to the art scene. I loved the latest exhibition at the Hastings Contemporary with Ibrahim El-Saliahi as well as the Artist Support Pledge, and I am just as excited for the exhibition after Seafaring, I really hope the gallery continues this streak of amazing shows.
Running my Dirty Old Gallery (DOG) is hard work – well I find it is anyway. I have a constant battle between curating material that I believe to be beautiful, powerful and important, whilst also choosing work that will sell and therefore cover next month’s rent. The pressure to sell takes away a lot of the magic of owning a creative space, but I somehow manage to get by each month without going against too many of my principles. I will always be encouraging more galleries – as long as we are supporting and feeding creative ‘yummyness’ into the community then surely that’s a great thing?
Yaaba Funk
An Amazing Journey
Remi Vibesman
Music Promoter
Don’t you just love this place? In the 15 years I’ve been here the appetite for music has been unlimited, though initially the sounds and culture I spent my life involved in were under-represented.
When I arrived in Hastings, I had no idea what would be. It seemed a no brainer to contribute, be part of the scene. Small club nights and live music events were popping up here and there. I found myself going everywhere, getting involved, attending events spanning all genres. Some venues were a bit rough round the edges, but it was the people that made the town so vibrant, not how plush the venues were. Any excuse to party and the locals were out
and about without disappointing. I discovered the kind of music I never would have heard had I still been living in London. It enhanced my creativity. For such a small town its vibes are acknowledged nationally.
HiddenBeach has focused on adding value and creating a diverse music scene with genres that are part of what we know and love but don’t hear enough of. It’s been an amazing journey that started out as a promotion brand called The Body Circus & United Colours of Rhythm. We brought you Rockabilly nights, Hip Billy Boogie in the Park and more, with live bands from all around the country. We were so proud.
Nowadays Hastings promoters are doing amazing things. Festivals popping up everywhere. There’s a hunger. Funk, soul, Reggae, Jazz, House, Afrobeat, Disco and more. We’re hosting the kind of music events unimaginable only a few years ago. Jah Shaka, Orchestra Baobab, Aba Shanti, Dele Sosimi, Sambrosso Noda, Saxon, Omar (MBE), Yabba Funk and many national artists/DJs alongside locals. New projects and collaborations like the Hastings Beach Party with some of the most respected DJs in the industry arriving in Hastings this summer. Audiences visiting from everywhere. So, it’s fair to say folks, Hastings & St Leonards will continue to experience a massive growth in music and culture, and long may it continue.
• www.facebook.com/pg/hiddenbeachuk/events
Struggle to Make Ends Meet
Jeremy Brook
Artist and graphic designer
Hastings and St Leonards has an unusually high number of visual artists for its size which makes it difficult for some of them to exhibit their work and get proper media exposure. We don’t have many well-established commercial art galleries in Hastings, which means that if you really want to advance your career you have to be with a London Art Gallery or have an agent.
Most fine art graduates struggle to make ends meet when they leave art college and have to find some other alternative employment to support their art practice. The lucky ones get invited to do some part time teaching to supplement their income, but with only one art college in Hastings these opportunities are very limited. If you have already exhibited widely in the UK and won prizes in open exhibitions, you might be able to get some part time teaching in one of the London art colleges.
A lot of artists come to Hastings because of its relatively low house prices compared to other places in the South East, which means some of them can afford to buy a house and use one of the rooms as a home studio. However, some artists who make large works such as installations and very large paintings will need bigger outside studios which are expensive to rent. This, then, excludes the majority of local artists living on a low income, some of whom would have studied at Hastings College as mature students and would have parental responsibilities in addition to their need to continue making creative work. One of the answers to this problem is to make better use of empty shops to provide rent free studios for artists or subsidised studios at a very low rent.
“I left school at 15 to get a job. In our house you either brought money in or you didn’t live there anymore. I fell into acting. A friend was shooting a short and the guy playing the lead villain didn’t show. Suddenly I’m in front of a camera and it went from there“
Francis Saunders – actor, playwright, director
The Play’s the Thing
John Knowles
Playwright, performer and theatre-maker
When I first moved here 22 years ago, I remember thinking, where is the comedy night? Where is the pub theatre? And I quickly realised that if I wanted it, I had to make it happen. Yes, you can gawp at the Jack in the Green, or whoop at the Bonfire Night madness or be a sweaty member of the Fat Tuesday crowd… but if you really want to make the most of Hastings, you have to get involved.
There has been a tsunami of post-covid theatre creatives arriving in Hastings and St Leonards attracted by property and lifestyle. But how well served are they if they want new independent theatre in their new hometown? Non-aligned theatre-makers have always had a major problem in Hastings with a lack of an independent theatre space. During the post-covid ‘are-we-open-are-we-not’ hiatus, the Stables Theatre was a shining light, giving space and creative support to many of us who were struggling to get our work back into the public domain. But there was almost nowhere else available to perform. New spaces do come on the market, but at eye watering prices and local investment in ‘creative spaces’ seems hardwired to the visual arts. Which is a shame, as Hastings has much to offer the world of theatre ̶ and newly arrived creatives have much to offer it.
So what is on offer? The Stables has opened its doors to many more professional companies when space and time is available in its busy amateur dramatics schedule, The Hastings Fringe shines a light on independent theatre, though is still short of professional critical reviews and links to industry. The White Rock remains the biggest recipient of local arts funding and yet does very little to support any theatre-makers in the town and other venues are primarily music focused. Yet there are excellent independent theatre companies in town. Theatre Nation this year will be touring ‘Waiting for Godot’; there’s the newly established Vital Theatre with Meisner-trained Dominique Gerrad; and Fetch Theatre will be touring ‘The Twelfth Night Trilogy’ being one of the first companies to work in the new Elizabethan-style theatre the Shakespeare North Playhouse on Merseyside. We also have the amazing Barefoot Opera whose community-based opera ‘Bloom Britannia’ was the hit of last year.
Basically, if you want experimental theatre, if you want that night of Peruvian Pan Pipes or that season of Scandinavian plays ̶ don’t talk about it, do it. Open a theatre, one that caters for the community and genuinely believes in independent thought-provoking drama. But anyway, make yourself known. There are many of us around and we need your support.
“Live music has been my business ever since I was young. The pandemic took away virtually all work opportunities. The Sisterhood began as my way of filling the void“
Sarah Jane Morris – musician
LEFT TO RIGHT: Sarah Jane Morris; Jazz Experience
Cats on the Keys
Mike Willis
Musician and Music Promoter
To the funky drummers who lay down the groove, and the pluckers of bass who fill up the room.
To the cats on the keys, and the ones bending strings, the horns and the brass and the second line cast.
All you singers of songs, may your voices stay strong that the words from your lips might give us a lift. Cause a lift’s what need to get back on the floor, and remember that music can open a door between people who had nothing between them before.
And to all of you dancing and out in the crowd, up on the tables and singing out loud, cheers for the memories and the sweat and the beer, because Hastings is music and music lives here.
CREDIT: Peter Mould
“Theatre in Sussex needs all the help it can get, so I encourage everyone to go out to as many shows as they can”
Stephen John – actor and director
For Local Poetry, Look Underground
Pete Donohue
Poet and Literature Editor Hastings Independent Press
The poetry scene in Hastings & St Leonards has been thriving for several years but many aspects can be less visible. Sometimes you have to dig underground to find the gems. How many local poets are currently creating work they wish to share? Hundreds. How many achieve the recognition they crave? Probably not many. How many make a living from poetry or even getting paid? I doubt they run into double figures.
So who are these local poets and where can you find them? A good place to start is in our independent bookshops. For a town our size we have a decent number – a reflection perhaps of residents’ interest in non-mainstream literature. Bookbusters on Queens Road has a section dedicated to local poets and affable proprietor Tim Barton knows them all. The Bookkeeper in Kings Road also stocks local poetry and here the knowledgeable Dennard family will help you navigate the scene. There is also Printed Matter and The Hastings Bookshop in Hastings new town, and Hare & Hawthorn in the Old Town where you may find works from local poets.
Hastings boasts two strong independent underground poetry publishers putting out limited edition chapbooks on a not-for-profit basis that usually sell out quickly and are distributed around the world, although mostly to the UK and US. Holy&intoxicated Press, run by reclusive, internet-shy Hastings poet John Robinson, has achieved international cult status over the years, introducing many new alternative and ‘outlaw’ poets to a wider readership. Local poet Martin Appleby, who produces the punk litzine Paper and Ink – issue 17 available now – also publishes chapbooks and broadsides featuring local poets on his Scumbag Press.
The best way to hear new local poetry or indeed bring your own poetry to an audience, is through the spoken word scene. The most consistent and enduring vehicle for this in recent years is Sheer Poetry, an open mic organised by Tim at Bookbusters every third Thursday of each month. This can attract between ten and sixty poets and poetry fans crammed into a cramped bookshop, and is famous for nurturing and encouraging new poets reading their work
for the first time. Since Covid, Tim has moved it down the road to the more spacious vintage clothes shop OneTwentyOne, where a £3 donation gets you free wine.
Slam Dunk, organised by Hastings poet Lucas Howard, was a fun and friendly pre-Covid monthly poetry slam – with winners voted by the audience. Although no longer regular, it still pops up from time to time. Poetry events in local pubs and venues are re-emerging, and local poetry features in festivals such as Hastings LitFest, Hastings Storytelling Festival, Hastings Pride and more.
For celebrated local contem-porary poets look to Salena Godden and Penny Pepper, both of whose work is well known beyond our town and can be heard on national radio and TV, at national poetry festivals and found in mainstream bookshops. And there’s HIP’s Poetry Corner: submissions are open to anyone with a local connection and you may see your work in print for the first time.
• Pete Donohue’s collection of poetry ‘swallowing paregoric babies’ is available from local independent bookshops and on Amazon.
Instagram: @petedonohuepoet
“Nondescript corners of the world, arranging themselves arbitrarily, can create some of the strangest and most stirring images. On one ten-minute walk there’s infinite discoveries to be made”
Benji Thomas – artist
Project ArtWorks, Hastings Contemporary
Not fade away
Helen Murphy
Artist, art teacher and art therapist
When I worked as an art therapist in palliative care, the therapy group was often told off for being too noisy. And the reason was they were enjoying themselves. Enjoying creating stuff and – temporarily at least – not being defined as ‘ill.’ Art, it seems, has that ability to help you reconnect with yourself. To remember who you still are. In a curious sense, perhaps, to literally draw you back out of yourself. Hastings excels at this type of provision.
Local groups such as Project Artworks and Arts on Prescription have shown the power of inclusive art practice. In creative group set-ups there is a great mix of being inside your imagination but also chatting and laughing with others. You can lose yourself and find yourself all at the same time. It was a huge vote of approbation that Project Artworks was runner up in this year’s Turner Prize. Alongside their neurodiverse artists and makers, the collective includes paid and unpaid caregivers who help each other to navigate through the complexities of health and social care systems.
An exhibition at Rye Art Gallery, entitled Memo, is all about that elusive slip-sliding thing we call memory. In part it developed out of the classes run by the local Drawing Life charity which provides art classes to people in care homes. Memo has been organised by the rather wonderful Judy Parkinson. This charity provides art classes, run by professional artists, in which people who are living with dementia and other memory loss conditions can engage in the making of art. Drawing and painting in a group has a weird magic to it. As Judy Parkinson says, “art opens the door to our feelings and invites us in.”
One of the unusual things about Memo is that the works of the people in the group are being exhibited alongside those of established artists. Some of the names are what you might call neon names in art history, such as Howard Hodgkin. And then there is Julian Bell, a great artist in his own right but also the grandson of Vanessa Bell. And on top of that, there are some great current artists from the cote de Hastings: Oska Lappin, Alan Rankle, Charlotte Snook and many others.
• Memo is on at Rye Art Gallery from 5 May to 5 June
“Solitude and isolation tend to be synonymous with the working practices of an artist, so when the members
of SoCo (South Coast Artists) have the opportunity to show their work, it’s a chance to get together as a group. Presenting a broad-spectrum of high-quality work is very much at the heart of the organisation’s ethos, and one on which it prides itself“
Martin Bradshaw – gallery co-ordinator
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