Two major collections meet in new Hastings Contemporary exhibition
Hastings Contemporary rings the changes with its latest exhibition Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs (September 21-March 16).
Category
đŸ˜¹
FunTranscript
00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Registrar at Sussex Newspapers. Always
00:05lovely to speak to Liz Gilmore, Director of Hastings Contemporary, and it's a fascinating
00:10time for the Gallery, isn't it? You've had a decent summer in difficult conditions. You
00:15are working towards your mobile gallery, which will be released in spring next year and on
00:21the road and touring, and you've got a fabulous new exhibition coming up. Where shall we start?
00:25Tell me about the exhibition, and it's Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs, September the 21st to
00:31March 16th. Has this been a long time in the planning?
00:36It's been about a year in the planning, and we are incredibly excited. This is a gallery-wide
00:42exhibition, so huge in scale for us, spanning all eight galleries and other areas, other
00:49spaces within the Gallery. And what we've managed to do is bring, by working with two
00:54great collections, an incredible group of well-known artists, from Sir Anthony Cairo
01:01and Louise Bourgeois, Hugh Lott, through to artists like Abigail Norris, who recently
01:08won an Ingram Prize, and she's Sussex-based, Lewis-based. So it's a huge array of artists
01:15and an exploration through history of the theme of still life.
01:19Yeah, but part of the interest is the fact that, as you understand, these two collections
01:23have never been brought together before. What made you think of doing so?
01:30Well, we know that we love supporting collectors and collecting, and many of these collections
01:37grow and then sit in a store. And although both the Ingram collection and Robert's collection
01:43are widely accessible, and behind that are very committed collectors, we are able to
01:52bring very personal qualities to show the support for artists, that give special insights
01:59into artists that may be early career, that were bought at an opportune time, and show
02:06the incredible creativity of those artists in a way that might otherwise not be seen.
02:12It sounds fabulous. In a way, you have to particularly spark the imagination at the
02:17moment, don't you? You're saying it's a tough climate out there, and the summer has been
02:22good enough, but it's not easy in Hastings at the moment, is it, for various reasons?
02:27It's incredibly tough. You know, Hastings, it's tough for all businesses in Hastings.
02:33And in a way, we want people to come to the town to visit. We want to be a beacon of light
02:40and a place where people feel at home, where they can be creative to support their wellbeing.
02:47And to spark new ideas for a sort of culture-led vision of a better life, and to give optimism
02:56and hope. So this show is joyful, playful, it's poignant, it takes you on a rollercoaster,
03:03not just through history, but through emotion, in ways that only artists can bring those
03:09kind of insights and observations, where the everyday is elevated to the extraordinary.
03:16Sounds fascinating. But the point is that you take the absolutely enlightened view that it's
03:20not just about people coming to you, as of next spring with the mobile studio, you'll be out and
03:26about reaching the parts of Hastings that other galleries can't reach, presumably.
03:30Absolutely. We're very pleased that this year we were given some money to develop a mobile
03:37creative studio, a shared space that other enterprises hopefully will use too. But we can
03:43take our creativity and our drawing hub and set up in areas of Hastings that otherwise people may
03:52not just come to the gallery. And that certainly is a trend, we're noting that in some of the most
03:58socially challenged areas, people are less inclined to travel, and we want to try and mitigate the
04:05whole sort of issues around mobility and getting here by taking ourselves to those areas. So it's
04:13an exciting time for us. It sounds an absolutely genius idea. Well, Liz, lovely to speak to you
04:18again, and good luck with all the initiatives. And thank you for your time. Thank you so much,
04:24Bill. Thank you.