The Snapper’s ‘ology
Alison Bettles, who has just curated the successful 2022 PhotoHastings festival, says local photography is thriving, and there is plenty of support for aspiring practitioners and artists.
This was my first year chairing the PhotoHastings festival and group and although I felt a little daunted at the beginning (taking over from Andrew Moran who was chair for 12 years), I have met a wonderful and enthusiastic group of people that are passionate about photography, sharing their knowledge, creativity and ideas.
PhotoHastings is an artist-led group that aims to inspire an appreciation of contemporary photographic art through an annual festival programme with regular talks, exhibitions, workshops and mentoring. The PhotoHastings season takes place from October each year. We are a small team at the organising level, but as a whole we’re a dedicated and supportive group to our artistic and photographic practice, and to each other.
Untitled (Scatter) by Dan Percy
Producing the festival is a collaborative effort with myself, Tracy Jones and Alexander Brattell and other members organising and funding each exhibition entirely ourselves. Every year the festival takes on a different form, and this year we had three wonderful weeks at Electro Studios Project Space in St Leonards which is fast becoming a photographic hub and meeting place. We held five creative and diverse, group and solo exhibitions, artist talks, performances and workshops.
Other events were held in and around Hastings to coincide with the festival including the Memorial Studio Project, Hastings Art Forum, a participatory photographic walk organised by multi-disciplined artist Sharon Haward which will culminate with a piece at The Billboard in St Leonards, and the amazing Photology Talks facilitated by Alexander Brattell.
Untitled-2 by Alison Bettles
These run once a week during October with guest speakers presenting and explaining their photographic practice to anyone who wants to come along. Over the years we have had both international and regional artists inspiring the crowd for a couple of hours of an evening. This year we hosted talks from Lucy Bell, Bruce Fleming, Mick Williamson and Ben Burbridge. Alexander Brattell hosted a special event sharing the history of the Memorial Studio Project that he collaborated on with Hastings-based artists Bea Lacey and Toby Shaw. These events are fun and informative and also a great opportunity to share news.
To help support our members’ creativity PhotoHastings are very active on social media, especially Instagram, promoting all our events, achievements and exhibitions that are currently happening. This year, for the first time we have included the creation of online Instagram galleries highlighting group members’ photographic practices.
To help keep the group connected throughout the year, Tracy Jones sends out a bi-monthly Ezine packed with information that includes exhibitions-regional and national- talks, and other interesting features such as book and exhibition reviews. There is a special members spotlight section where we highlight and interview individual group members to share and discuss their photographic ideas and themes including images of their work. The Ezine is also a chance for members to share any news or other photo related topics with us which we can then pass on to others.
• Sign up to PhotoHastings newsletter at www.photohastings.org/e-zine Membership details can also be found on the website.
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