Beach of Dreams Launch
This year’s Coastal Currents festival launches the MSL Beach of Dreams Programme on 31 August. In 2025, the UK-Wide coastal festival will feature a new Hastings commission, and the local community are invited to take part.
Beach of Dreams, a UK-wide coastal arts festival celebrating and exploring the unique heritage, cultures, and climate futures of our coastlines, will take place across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland from 1 May to 1 June 2025. The arts organisation Kinetika has created an evolving national silk artwork featuring hundreds of naturally dyed hand-woven silk pennants, and alongside this there will be newly-commissioned artworks in eight coastal locations.
One of these commissions is the creation of a piece of storytelling – a contemporary ‘pilgrims’ tale’ focussing on the stories of people who live, work and spend time on the shorelines, from Dungeness in Kent to Bulverhythe in East Sussex. Created by internationally renowned writer Anders Lustgarten in collaboration with MSL Projects Hastings, the piece will focus on the region’s fascinating history, present and future. It will explore the changing coastline as well as the interlinked flow and displacement of people within the UK and globally.
Supported by Arts Council England, the commission also responds to the questions Who are we? What are our choices? and explores the interdependency of sea and land and the communities who live and work at the point they meet.
On Saturday 31 August 2024, MSL launches the SE Beach of Dreams Programme as part of the annual Coastal Currents festival. Walkers will bear Kinetika’s hand-dyed pennants along the foreshore between West St Leonards and Hastings Old Town and carry them up to the West Hill where they will be rooted, visible from hill and shore. All ages will be invited to design their own small pennant with Ali Pretty of Kinetika working with Radiator Arts. They can also share their own stories and aspirations for this stretch of coast with writer Anders Lustgarten and members of the MSL team.
The final commission will be presented as part of a three-day walk and series of public events and performances from the evening of 29 May 2025 in Hythe through to a stunning finale at twilight in Bulverhythe on 1 June to climax the national festival.
The nationwide creative programme will invite participants, organisations, artists, walkers, writers, activists and scientists to embark on a month-long exploration, celebration and activation of the UK’s coastline through events, creative walks, activations and more.
Beach of Dreams and MSL invites groups along the coastline of the south-east of England to take part and become part of the growing national network of organisations who are exploring themes relating to the coastal environment, organising local events, and contributing to Kinetika’s evolving national silk artwork.
Take part in Beach of Dreams and learn more at beachofdreams.org
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