On Saturday 7 March, New Queers On The Block, a touring series of shows programmed by the Marlborough Theatre in Brighton, present a double bill at Masonic Hall, Hastings as a tour finale in conjunction with local arts organisation, Home Live Art.

Brighton’s Marlborough Theatre have produced, commissioned and toured New Queers On The Block – a programme created to develop performances by innovative LGBTQ+ artists. 

In Hastings, NQOTB and Home Live Art present Lucy Hutson’s autobiographical BOUND, reflecting on Lucy’s past and present, using authentic documentation and performance filmed over a 10 year period. Joining Lucy will be Oozing Gloop. Check out www.homeliveart.com to learn more.

Lucy Hutson by Holly Revell

GLOOPTOPIA by Oozing Gloop
PICTURE: Kaleido Shoots

Coastal Currents Needs You! 

Cee Pil’s street art – a leading feature of 2019’s Coastal Currents festival – has placed among the world’s top street art pieces of 2019, putting Bexhill on the map with major and capital cities across the globe. Now Coastal Currents needs public support if it’s going to carry on into its 22nd year, bringing more joy and attention to our wonderfully creative stretch of seaside. Look on their website, as well as HIP’s and HOT’s for coverage of last year’s festival. 

• Find the new crowdfunder here: www.gofundme.com/coastal-currents-2020 

Show Home

Solaris’ latest show is New Prints by Tom Banks. Tom says “Wandering down empty streets past homes, imagining the lives lived within. This exhibition is a chance to step across the tended borders, over the threshold, unseen, to take a peek inside.

“There is stillness, the inhabitants conspicuous by their absence. The reassuring mundane signs of occupancy are to be found in these domestic scenes, a vase of lavender, a wrinkle in the bed covers. But we are interlopers. The familiar becomes unfamiliar, unknown, things in the wrong place.”

Banks graduated from Kingston University in 1996 with a BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting. He has exhibited in London, Manchester, Swansea, Barcelona and throughout South East England. He has work held in private collections in London, Kent, East Sussex and Spain. In 2016 he won the Beep International Painting Prize. He resides and works in St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex.

• Exhibition runs from 22nd February until Saturday 4th April, at Solaris Print Ltd, 76 Norman Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN38 0EJ. Open Tuesday to Friday, 1pm to 6pm, Saturday, 10am to 6pm.

Show Home 1 (Interior 1) by Tom Banks, Giclée print, 2020

We are pleased to announce that Coastal Currents Arts Festival has been successful yet again with their Arts Council England funding, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief and start blocking out September in our diaries to ready ourselves for yet another selection of incredible performances, exhibitions, events and surprising pop-ups!

As director of Coastal Currents and Sweet and Dandy Ltd, I will continue to push the envelope with both unusual new commissions and pieces that look to transform the spaces around us; continually looking to keep this much loved festival currently in its 20th year, fresh, bold, brave and relevant as well as unique to 1066.

Based in Hastings and St Leonards but stretching out to Battle, Rye, Bexhill and the rest of 1066, the impact of this month of cultural offerings is becoming even more visible. With Bottle Alley’s Wavelength project last year and Isaac Cordal’s little men of Rock a Nore still peeking out of locations in the Old Town, the festival looks to future legacy and more permanent pieces that get absorbed into the landscape of the town. On that note we are still on the hunt for freehold building owners with available walls for a mural – please do get in touch!

Curators and artists chosen for 2018 include Becky Beasley, Emily Peasgood, Becky McCray, Chiara Ambrosia, HOME LIVE ART, Fuel, Marlborough Theatre, Screen South, ZEROH, and Greig Burgoyne. The festival makes a bold statement with an opening piece by Morag Myerscough, an octagonal bandstand which will descend on the Stade Open Space from the 1st. Don’t forget the Opening Party on the 31st August and the Open Studio trails which happen on the first two weekends (1st/2nd and 8th/9th). There will also be a Coastal Currents Pecha Kucha special on the 6th September at the De La Warr Pavilion. So you might as well just take September off, invite all your friends to visit and take it all in.

The festival runs from the 1st September to the 30th September 2018 and the brochure will be available from mid July.

• Find out more about the festival as it unfolds at coastalcurrents.org.uk or on Instagram
@coastalcurrentsfestival or on Facebook 

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article from Hastings Independent. The future of this volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.