TIG WINDOW DRAWINGS

In the window of House of Hastings- a shop that had stood derelict for many years- on the busy Queens Road in Hastings Town Centre, I coordinated a drawing project with a local group of artists and illustrators (TIG).

During September 2010, throughout the Coastal Currents arts festival, the group played a drawing game by gradually drawing, amending, developing and transforming the shop window.

OMIYAGE: AN ARTISTS' EXCHANGE PROJECT BETWEEN JAPAN & THE UK

I met Rachel Carvosso at university in 1997. Rachel has lived in Tokyo for the past seven years, but we kept in touch through letters, emails and scattered Skype calls.

Over a couple of years we worked on a collaborative exchange between Tokyo and Hastings, England. In September 2009 Rachel brought a selection of work by eleven contemporary Japanese artists including animation, illustration, painting, textiles, drawing, books, printmaking & film to my occasional gallery in Hastings.

The ongoing conversation and relationship formed a key part of the process, & in Rachel's initial visit, the discussions, drawings and ideas developed & became integrated into a series of window drawings and a hand-drawn programme.

NEVER WASH A BLANKET IN MAY

I curated this exhibition to tie-in with the May Bank Holiday weekend, which in Hastings celebrates the Jack in the Green festival, with its extravagant procession, costume, and ceremony to topple the Jack.

Four local artists took part, exhibiting painted handkerchiefs, knitwear, photographs & costume, plus 16 artists from East London Printmakers contributed prints and drawings based on the theme.

POCKET PLEASURES EXHIBITION & BOOK FAIR (TODD'S GALLERY) &

ARTISTS' BOOK FAIR (WALCOTMART)

In late 2008 and early 2009, I coordinated two small exhibitions/ fairs of artists books, showing and selling the work of ten contemporary book artists. The first was Todd's Gallery, in Hastings Old Town, the second Walcotmart, a newly shop & project space in Bath City Centre. 

WISH YOU WERE HERE

Shortly after I moved to Hastings, I curated a small exhibition, inviting six artists from London & Manchester  with backgrounds in fine art, book arts, photography, English Literature and graphics to contribute a suitcase of books, objects or curiosities connected to the theme of travel or 'awayness'. 

The work produced included an artists' film and costume, a set of letterpress postcards, a hand-stitched case of photographs, a pop-up book & two new book works. The launch party featured a film projection, artists book stall, a tombola performance & cake stand, bibliotherapy on the stairway, and the exhibition was launched by a speech by writer Iain Sinclair.

VISIBLE: EXPLORING THE LCC ARCHIVE

In 2008 I researched and curated this exhibition, & edited the publication Fieldstudy. The LCC archive concealed a curious jumble of the college's own records & documentation, plus a range of objects & ephemera related to print, design & typography, collected over decades. Emma Jane Spain was commissioned to produce a new body of photographs in response to the archive.