Hastings Contemporary is open after the latest Lockdown with three stimulating exhibitions. Just because you haven’t heard of an artist doesn’t mean that they aren’t good or that they aren’t well respected somewhere else. Quentin Blake is extremely well known but HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths has to admit she didn’t know the work of artists Lakwena Maciver or Stephen Chambers before. She does now.
This second Lockdown, rather than met with despair, seems to have been greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and resignation. However, creativity has flourished and restaurants, cafes and bars that have been forced to close are doing what they do and offering sustenance to the locals by way of takeaways. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths sampled some of the goodies on offer.
What did you do during lockdown? It meant different things to different people: to some it was a welcome hiatus; to others a sort of imprisonment; lonely; stuck; lack of concentration; walks; gardening; reading; jigsaws; boxed TV sets; cooking and baking. Some enjoyed it, others hated it. And lots thanked the weather gods for the fine weather. To HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths a black cloud settled, resulting in a sort of torpor with the occasional action spike. But I did take photographs, as did other members of Photo Hastings – and here I have to declare an interest – as being part of an exhibition We Baked All Our Own Bread: one mischief always leads to another.
Our lives may have shrunk, like snails, into our homes, but the tentacles of Covid stretch far and wide into far reaching sectors. One: the natural world of trees, birds, animals, as we reach out for something, anything, outside our immediate environment. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was thrilled to encounter Ian Wood’s photographs of great apes at the Lucy Bell Gallery.
Hastings is continually full of surprises; it never ceases to deliver. Just as you thought you’d seen it all, you round a corner and come face to face with something surreal. In this instance, the surreal head of punk extraordinaire Iggy Pop raises his head, featuring in a Hastings created film, Squirrel Mountain’s Iggy to the Rescue. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths spoke to the writer, producer Angelica Campion.
Most people feel reluctant to travel in these landlocked Covid times. Yet it is still possible to ‘travel’ to various places in memory while exploring documentaries, films, food in Italian, Spanish, French, Indian restaurants. And at exhibitions. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths explored the Two Worlds art exhibition at Hastings Arts Forum – the work of photographer Brian Rybolt
Hastings Contemporary is open again with Covid regulations intact and two very different exhibitions. First you walk through Quentin Blake’s rather forlorn We Live in Worrying Times and then enter something completely different in Victor Pasmore’s abstract exhibition: Line & Space. After five months in the cultural desert HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths went to visit the gallery.
Everyone has a creative gene in them. If you are shaking your head, think back to when you were a child. Did anything hold you back from painting, drawing, creating dens under the dining room table, making up stories and letting the imagination run free? HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was reminded of those days when she learned that the local homelessness prevention charity, Homelink, has launched a Sussex-wide creative challenge in aid of local homelessness.
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