The auction will be ‘secret’ in that all works will be anonymous and the individual artists will only be revealed after the sale. Many artists who are contributing have significant profiles, with works featuring in public and private collections. Also a large number live and work in Hastings and St Leonards. 

The process of bringing this auction together has highlighted the wealth of local creative talent. Some of the fabulous artists contributing include: Laetitia Yhap, Kim Wan, Colin Booth, Dave White, Carne Griffiths, Hutch, Peter Quinnell, Claire Fletcher, Mary Hooper, Elise Liversedge and Katherine Reekie. 

Works span styles and influences from graphic novels, tattoo and graffiti art, through to conceptual work and watercolours, capturing nature and the world around us. The diversity of the work on sale really provides a huge range of choice for any buyer – and you never know, you might be buying an extremely collectable work. The beauty is that it is secret, you just buy what you love. There will, however, be clues along the way, as the contributing artists are being featured on the Wheels4foxsake Facebook page #wheels4foxsake and on Instagram @wheels4foxsake. The works will be posted separately through these social media channels in the week leading up to the auction to give buyers an idea of what is available.

Esther Fox has a muscle-wasting condition which means she uses a wheelchair. “I’ve been overwhelmed by the huge generosity of my fellow artists to donate to this cause,” she says. “It’s really highlighted what a privilege it is to be part of an arts community.” 

She explains that although she has worked with some of the donating artists in the past, there are others that she has never met or been aware of before: “It’s this readiness to give their work which has been so profound.”

She points out that the nature of creating art is something that takes years of commitment, effort and skill: “It’s this ‘practice’ of making art that sits behind every individual piece, which is why donating a work is more than just giving one piece.” 

Esther has exhibited widely including at The Science Museum London, The Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne and at SICK! Festival at the Lowry in Manchester. Esther is also a trustee for Hastings Contemporary.

• Find out more about the campaign at  gofundme.com/f/e9w5h-for-fox-sake; on eBay search for wheelsforfoxsake. 

• You can also find out more about Esther Fox www.appleyardfoxart.com
and on twitter @AppleyardFox 

Doors Closed, Exhibitions Open

As part of its efforts to reduce the spread of Coronavirus, HBC ordered that a number of businesses and attractions close, including museums and galleries. Hastings Contemporary has obeyed this closure, like everyone else, but is doing its best to continue providing access to artworks. Through what is reportedly the first time telepresence robot technology has been used in a gallery in the UK, Hastings Contemporary and Bristol Robotics Lab will provide audiences with remote access to the gallery’s exhibitions even while its doors remain closed.

PICTURE: Will Barrett

Robot-assisted tours of the current programme will allow would-be visitors stuck at home to be guided around the gallery by curators and the other members of the HC team. This technology may also allow local artist-educators to run interactive art lessons involving the gallery, using the same robot assistance to show children and students around exhibitions. 

Other plans to enable remote access to the gallery’s resources include: developing a new online hub of art and mindfulness resources, with a focus on entertaining or engaging the children of key workers; creating bespoke digital art lessons and creative learning activities for many of Hastings’ temporarily closed schools; and virtual 3D renderings of the gallery’s three postponed spring shows. The shows are: Victor Pasmore: Line & Space; Stephen Chambers: The Court of Redonda; and Quentin Blake: We Live In Worrying Times.

Liz Gilmore, Director of Hastings Contemporary said: “As we navigate through these testing times and manage the loss of important revenue streams, I’m thrilled to embrace such innovation and creativity […] next week I will be leading some virtual tours to bring to life the incredible exhibitions on offer, prioritising people who are most affected by the lockdown and are now having to self-isolate for a number of weeks […] Recordings of these tours will be made available to the public afterwards. In this way, over the months ahead, we hope to continue our exciting future calendar of contemporary art exhibitions, and our educational and community engagement programmes.”

Robot Technology as a Social Enabler

The ‘Double’ – the robot Hastings Contemporary will be using – is a two-wheeled videoconferencing platform that can guide an operator and up to five people through real time tours. It was created by Bristol Robotics as part of D4D, a national research project which states it “will investigate the evolving ways in which we as disabled and non-disabled people express, perform, experience and practice ‘community’.” D4D stands for “Dis/engagement, Dis/enfranchisement, Dis/parity and Dissent”. The Double’s use at Hastings Contemporary will help Bristol Robotics and D4D refine the use of telepresence technology to improve remote access to art, culture and community well beyond the end of Coronavirus. 

Praminda Caleb-Solly, Professor for Assistive Robotics and Intelligent Health Technologies at the Bristol Robotics Lab, UWE said, “I am absolutely thrilled to team up with Hastings Contemporary as part of our Arts and Humanities Research Council D4D project to provide people who are socially isolated the opportunity to enjoy art via the telepresence robot.”

PICTURE: Will Barrett

She continues, “This is an excellent example of how robotics technology can be used to support people in difficult situations such as we are currently experiencing. There are other applications for the use of telepresence robots within health and social care and I look forward to learning from our experiences at Hastings how to apply them elsewhere.”

Esther Fox, Head of Accentuate, an arts and culture organisation that aims to support the talents of deaf and disabled people, is part of the research project at D4D. She’s also a Hastings Contemporary trustee and HIP featured her in the run-up to AltPitch Arts and Technology Festival.

Esther says D4D: “explores how new technologies can change experiences of disability, social belonging and community engagement. Up until now we have been working with disabled people to explore how the telepresence robot might open up access to spaces they could not experience. We are now excited to see how we can enable a wider group of people to access great art and combat isolation, particularly those with underlying health conditions who are having to self-isolate.”

AltPitch’s Proof of Concept

AltPitch Arts and Technology festival is dedicated to exploring the relationship between the digital world and humanity, and the responsibilities that come with our technological expansion. It had planned a week of exciting performances and supporting events to provoke thought and debate, bring together creatives and innovators, question our daily use of technology, and ultimately help the audience to find their own answers to pressing questions about how humanity will function in the future.

Anastasia Witts, Executive Producer of AltPitch Festival, says “There are a few valuable lessons we can learn in these extraordinary situation. And one thing is obvious from the start – the necessity to stay at home pushes people to embrace technology in a much more thoughtful way and to re-think their relationships with it. Computer literacy is growing by the day and people realise that digital technology contains so many helpful options, and we have only been using it superficially. On behalf of the AltPitch Festival, we are delighted to see the Hastings Contemporary leading the way and quickly adapting to the needs of the situation showing ingenuity, resilience and opening new exciting opportunities for the art lovers. The AltPitch Festival is very happy to support this initiative.”

Even if most of its public events have been shut down (the venues closed due to COVID-19) AltPitch has been able to use digital technology to carry on. #echochamber, the Anglo-Icelandic opera about sexism and shaming on social media (which uses a live twitter feed as part of performances) was streamed on the festival Facebook page and can be watched until 27th April on the AltPitch website. Meanwhile, the work of Bristol Robotics Lab and Hastings Contemporary has gone some way to proving the festival’s core concept: that arts and technology can work together to improve access to social resources and even increase profit. The AltPitch Platform – a day of lectures from experienced speakers, hopes to return in September this year. 

What about the Virus? 

We all have to put on a brave face, engage in that ‘Dunkirk Spirit’, the spirit we only bring out when we’ve already been beaten and want to resurrect ourselves. It’s great that we have a robot rolling around a gallery, providing access to disabled and self-isolating individuals alike. That is a good thing. But what is art, and what is a gallery, any gallery perhaps, when set against death and economic collapse? Reality is knocking at the door, and even the arts world (perhaps as expected, actually) doesn’t seem overly interested in it. 

I think there’s a chance we’re going to get through this pandemic relatively ‘easily’, so just the few tens of thousands of deaths that Dominic Cummings allegedly said is a price worth paying. What will we have learned by the time we get to the other side? Will we just have a better relationship with digital and remote technology? Will we care more or less about each other? Will people stop saying economic collapse and NHS workers and patients without protective gear, without funding, is “not political”? I think it’s summed up beautifully with the image of a couple, sitting in relative comfort at home, looking through a robot at one of the scenes of devastation or disarray from The Age of Turmoil, Edward Burra’s War in the Sun, say. Looking at it and saying to each other, “Isn’t that a wonderful painting?” and “Such an expressive palette!” and, soon after, going back to Netflix and a pot of fresh-boiled pasta. The day carries on. 

You can enjoy the main programme of the AltPitch festival for a discounted price with the Main Festival Ticket. It costs £30 and includes our three big shows – #echochamber, WHIST and Beyond Belief. 

The Bavard Bar
18th March, 7.30pm,
Kino-Teatr

Much-loved in Hastings and Eastbourne, the Bavard Bar is making a special entry at the AltPitch Festival. Come and hear three regular people share their passions for about 15 minutes each. Revel in the delights of audience wild cards, including the KP Lite challenge, Oojah Kappivvy and Bohemia Road. The main subjects are kept secret until the night – shhhh! 

The Platform
20th March, 10.00am-5.00pm
Station Plaza, East Sussex College

The Platform is a collaborative partnership between Sussex-based digital and creative businesses and the art and performance practitioners. The inaugural Platform conference will present several high-profile speakers and interactive workshops for the participants who are interested in integrating creativity and innovation. 

Read more on here or at alt-pitch.org

The Female Planet
26th-28th March, 10.00am-5.00pm
Hastings Library, Free Entry

This VR documentary series introduces female role models who are breaking barriers and helping make the world a better place for all of us. Each episode features a different leader who focuses her career on roles that empower women, such as Tiera Fletcher, a NASA engineer, or Golden Globe-winning actor Gina Rodriguez.   

#echochamber
27th March, 7.00pm Q&A/8.00pm performance
St Mary in the Castle

#Echochamber is an Anglo-Icelandic opera about sexism and shaming on social media, from the music theatre group Aequitas Collective in collaboration with Folk Opera Iceland. The audience can impact the performance directly through the live Twitter feed on stage.

WHIST
28th March, 12.00pm-9.00pm
St Mary in the Castle,
Book Your One-hour Slot

This mesmerising hour-long experience merges Physical Theatre, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, in an environment that blurs the boundaries between consciousness and unconsciousness, reality and fiction, the physical and the virtual. Through art and 3D sound installation coupled with cinematic and interactive 360° film, viewers will be immersed in a surreal world of unfolding dreams and fears.

Beyond Belief
29th March, 6.00pm
St Mary in the Castle

What would happen if you could live forever? If you could bring your loved one back to life and resurrect their digital soul? Beyond Belief is a powerful and moving journey into the unnerving future of life and death in our social media obsessed, technology-blinkered society. From the award-winning Tmesis Theatre, Liverpool.

Evolution
26th-28th March, 10.00am-5.00pm
Hastings Library, Free Entry

Stepping into the imagined study of Francis Galton, the viewer will explore a VR world and fantasy collection of specimens and will be asked to make their own selections, facing uncomfortable questions about what we value and what we discard. VR installation by the Hastings-based artist and curator Esther Fox.