Hastings Contemporary to launch mobile gallery in 2025

“It has been a good summer for us in the context of it being a difficult summer for Hastings, for local businesses. I think it’s been a combination of reasons really. Staycation tourism has died down a little bit post-Covid. People are going abroad again, and there were also perceived issues around the risk of sewage spillage. Happily that has not been too bad but we're also dealing with the context of Hastings itself. It is a place of amazing creativity but it does also have some acute social issues, and unemployment has doubled since Covid.

“Our mission is to try to bring some of the best art to as many people as possible and we need to be doing that in a tough climate. But we've got a great team of volunteers that are the face of the gallery and we've had a string of exhibitions that have been very popular. We've done well enough. The numbers are slightly below where we were last year in terms of visits from paying visitors but the number of people coming through the outreach work and the education work has increased. We have to be Robin Hood in our business model. We're trying to raise funds and to work hard. We need people to buy membership and to buy things in the shop and really we need people to support the benefits that we can bring to the community.”

And these are exciting times: “We have been awarded money from the levelling up to build a mobile studio to reach people who are finding it harder and harder to come into town and come to the gallery. We will be able to go out there and reach them. The mobile studio is in construction at the moment and we would hope that next April or May we'll be able to take the mobile studio around the town to parts that we would not otherwise be able to reach. We are finding that children in some of the most challenged social contexts are not in schools that are able to allocate resources to come to the gallery. So we will be going out to them. Quentin Blake, our patron, did a lovely vision sketch for it. The idea is making drawing accessible to all and to recognise the health and mental benefits of arts in the community especially in this tough climate.

“The mobile studio will be towable. It will be set in a context and become resident. It's like a mobile library or like an ice cream van size but bigger. It won't have an engine itself but the point is it will unfold out, and rather than people coming into the vehicle it will spill out into the community through the vehicle. It's very exciting. We are now consulting with our other colleagues in the town and a number of different enterprises who might also be able to use it.”

Liz is stepping down from her role after 14 years to become CEO of The Sherborne, a new gallery and arts space in Dorset. She will take up her new role in March 2025. The process of recruiting a new Hastings director before Liz steps down at the end of February is under

way.