Tawfik Naas, whose Manifestations For An Eternal Spring occupies the main gallery at Flatland, is described as a researcher rather than an artist. Neat arrangements of enigmatic objects offer cryptic clues as to his intentions. Tiny stamps, the image of Muammar Gaddafi in heroic pose, heart-shaped plaques depicting industrial machinery (maybe sections of a pipeline of the kind in which Gaddafi hid and died), the wing bones of birds and a series of flinty fragments, all speak of an exploded past. A crystal ball hints at the prospect of an unambiguous future.

Also on display is one of Annie Whiles’s Doorway Guardians. ‘Minder’ is a wooden mannequin, part hot dog, part chrysalis, its human face emerging from an oaken sarcophagus. Less grotesque than Ana Maria Pacheco’s similarly uncanny figures, it is pacific and solitary, its tranquil face suggestive of infinite patience. Visitors are encouraged to touch the work, not just take a selfie. The unspoken suggestion is that over centuries it will be worn down like the statue of a saint, rubbed smooth by the fingers of countless pilgrims.

The sculpture embodies contradictory impulses, evoking on the one hand the mystically charged Daoist idea of Pu, the essential uncarved block; and on the other, exhibiting the elaborate and celebratory flourishes of the medieval artisan (with a hint of Young British Artist – YBA – irreverence). It’s both profound and light-hearted.

Finally, a mention for Adrian Cox’s easily overlooked banner None of us are free until all of us are free above the gallery entrance. Despite the cracker-barrel sentiment, it’s a quietly lyrical work, the muted political intentions of which are bolstered by an online booklet downloadable from Flatland’s website.

Cox also makes physical publications via the Teiresian imprint: mythopoetic Risograph prints and a substantial magazine of art and texts by transgender and queer creatives. Its high production values and bold design are marred only by the use of a rather florid titular typeface.

Exhibition runs until 16 August 2026, Thursday to Saturday, 12pm to 4pm. Flatland Projects, Unit 22 Beeching Road, Bexhill-on-Sea TN39 3LJ

Rock Paper Scissors, a solo exhibition by Daniela Maria Gargiulo at Hastings Arts Forum, comprises sixty pictures made in the three years since the artist’s daughter left home. That particular loss informs all the works, along with a sense of discovery arising from Daniela’s exploration of the Sussex coast. Subtitled Local Landscapes in Collage, the show ranges from familiar landmarks like Eastbourne’s Martello Tower and the Sound Mirrors at Denge to the neglected nooks and crannies of day-to-day urban sprawl.

Daniela lights upon the windswept rooftop of De La Warr Pavilion (on which sits a pair of abandoned plastic chairs), the windowsill of Bexhill Used Appliance Centre (home to a tangle of unruly weeds) and the tattered advertising hoardings at Warrior Square station.

If the choice of subject suggests a follower of ‘grim art’, Daniela’s dramatic command of colour transforms these scenes into a blissful celebration of the ordinary. Rock Paper Scissors depicts a vernacular landscape with everyday insight and revelation. Abandoned factories rub shoulders with High Romantic castles and modernist concrete ruins with abundant wild flower meadows. Solid stone and exuberant nature struggle under unsettled skies. Each otherworldly image offers the fleeting promise of home.

Gargiulo’s intricately assembled collages are made from painted paper. It’s laborious work involving layer upon layer of meticulous cut-and-paste and elaborate colour palettes – purples and lavenders, synthetic greens and electric yellows. Where the viewer’s eye searches instinctively for painterly gestures – brush strokes or palette knife marks – instead are found tiny strands of paper, applied with rhythmic complexity.

With a background in fashion, her approach is that of an artisan. The results are a far cry from what we typically expect from collage: there are no knowing nods to consumerism, no torn-out images from newspapers, no surrealist juxtapositions. The focus instead is on minute detail, on forensic observation of the environment, both built and natural. Daniela’s idiosyncratic technique is part of a singular vision.

Some pictures display the obsessive outsider intensity of Richard Dadd or Madge Gill. Others exude the empathy and lyricism of East Sussex artist Annie Soudain, with whom Daniela shares a passion for the natural world.

“The show is an archive of places which hold memories and ideas of the past,” she tells me. One work, entitled The Empty Nest, shows a glowering castle framed by autumnal trees, bringing together the personal, the seasonal and the deep historical in a single energised image. The shattered sky offers a space where an eagle might soar or a sly wren ascend: both a monumental ruin and a site of quiet hope.

Exhibition runs 27 May to 7 June 2026, Wednesdays to Sundays, 11am to 5pm. Hastings Arts Forum, 20 Marine Court, St Leonards-on-Sea

Even in a town that boasts its fair share of post-punk prodigies, sightings of DIY luminary Bing Selfish are as rare and as welcome as new socks. Cutting his teeth in London’s fertile squat scene of the 1980s, releasing records too recondite for Rough Trade, publishing a myriad of zany zines and even directing a couple of full-length movies, Bing has been a one-man underground art movement for over thirty years. An unexpected visit to The Pig this month finds him in the company of exquisite Okinawan folk duo Luuchuu Sisters, spunky local funksters Simon and The Pope, and moving image montage maestro Duncan Reekie.

It’s a typically eclectic setting for this restless songster, whose corrosive wit is matched only by his plaintive politics worn lightly on a paisley patterned sleeve. With the aura of a faded playboy and the stage presence of a recently drowned rat, Bing sings of bitter existential angst, quixotic subcultural cravings and the pressing need for a leftist revolution. Imagine Alexei Sayle trying to channel Nick Drake and you’re halfway to his heart.

A cult, a myth, a legend, a loser all rolled into one, whose songs of intrigue / betrayal / lust / science and imagination scan the centuries, Bing is also the creator of the Bing Selfish Radio Show on Resonance FM. As the music establishment sinks to new depths of mediocrity and plagiarism, Selfish and his phenomenal associates have created the perfect antidote: pure pop music, adventurous and subversive, a truthful call to arms for all who know there’s more to life than apps, likes and vibes.

Diehard fans will doubtless call out for such hardy perennials as Sold Down the River by the Labour Party and the all-golden Orwellian hymn to The Government of Love. The rest of us can expect numbers from his spanking new CD, The Day I Fell in Love with Everyone. Selfish offers a savvy, savage, sardonic pop opposition to our daily dumbing down: timely, often touching and entirely necessary. Sparks will fly.

Bing Selfish + Luuchuu Sisters + Simon and The Pope + Duncan Reekie (live visuals),The Pig, 37 White Rock. Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7pm