A COMMUNITY STORYTELLING PROJECT - Project Art Works
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UNTOLD
STORIES
PROJECT
A COMMUNITY
STORYTELLING
Project Art Works
Trinity Triangle Heritage Action Zone
02 | 03
Project Art Works Untold Stories
A collection of memories, stories, Heritage Action Zone (TTHAZ) is the The Trinity Triangle area of Hastings What is now called the Trinity
images and ephemera from our continuation of our commitment to is an area rich in history and built Triangle first came into my
local community about this unique this neighbourhood. heritage – it is home to the story consciousness as a sixteen year old.
part of Hastings known as the of the America Ground rebels, From within the bright, light spaces
Trinity Triangle. The TTHAZ is a four-year Victorian and Edwardian buildings, of the Brassey Institute art school
regeneration programme supported the iconic Observer Building and on the top two floors of what is now
This area has a rich and unusual by Historic England to breathe new the beautifully renovated library. the Hastings Library, the ‘triangle’
history and is changing as it life into a historic part of Hastings The residents of the area are diverse was visible (the library occupied the
becomes redeveloped, regenerated town centre: the Trinity Triangle and and it is home to many small, building then as now but not quite
and reimagined. America Ground. independent businesses and a so extensively). Those two years of
growing number of creative people learning drawing, printmaking of all
Heart of Hastings Community Land It’s a programme that is all about live and work in the area kinds, painting, design and so on
Trust firmly believes in community- putting local people in the driving via an art foundation course were a
led regeneration and has been part seat of looking after, restoring and For us, heritage isn’t just about old significant experiential portal into
of the Trinity Triangle community celebrating the wonderful heritage buildings, it’s about everyone’s art which is in fact a way of living.
since 2016 when we moved into of this unique, but neglected, part stories – especially those who
Jon Cole hello halo 1997 (121.5 x 122cm) Oil on Canvas
Rock House. The Trinity Triangle of Hastings’ town centre. We will wouldn’t usually make it into the Then, after some years and further
celebrate people’s ideas, help them guidebooks or formal histories. study away and with two young
to shape the places they live and Just as celebrating heritage children, I took a studio space
work, and promote stories about this isn’t just about preservation or shared with the painter Jonathan
special, historic neighbourhood. restoration, it’s about creating Cole on the top floor of 12 Claremont
spaces and a neighbourhood that next door to the library. Another
people can enjoy and want to visit eerie, a light and airy space with
again and again. a detailed view of the sandstone
fascia of Trinity Church across the
The Untold Stories project is an road. The light in the studio was
important part of this ambition. stunning, and when working to a
deadline I was on occasions there
James Leathers when the sun rose, streaming light
Heritage Action Zone, Heart of through the east facing windows.
Hastings Community Land Trust Beautiful light.
Jon and I embarked on a short but We’re building new partnerships
Jon met my son Paul, who charmed ambitious series of artist residencies and sharing common ideas that
and affected our conversations in local SEND schools working with ensure a sense of responsibility and
WELCOME TO about art, materials and the
importance of our senses and
over 160 children in self-directed art
making through etching, casting and
large floor-based paintings. These
were extraordinary experiences and
ownership of this central and special
site within Hastings town centre.
This is a tiny fragment of the many
UNTOLD STORIES formed the approaches to Project Art
Works, its philosophy and subsequent
trajectory.
Untold Stories that make up our
relationship with the spaces we
live in and inhabit. To see and be
part of the change that is unfolding
sensory engagement in art So, to now be so close to re-entering in this special area of the town is
making. Jon painted Hello/Halo 12 Claremont in another phase of significant to Project Art Works and
(a beautiful painting that now its life and that of Project Art Works in 2021 we will open Untitled Gallery
hangs in our home) in response is significant. The building is on in the ground floor of 12 Claremont.
to Paul’s use of the word ‘hello’ a routeway to the sea, the area is A new chapter in the unfolding story.
that he deploys in many different being gradually restored through
intonations and circumstances as community-based commitment, Kate Adams
a way to connect. In 1996 together, friendship, shared skills and love. Project Art Works
04 | 05
Project Art Works Untold Stories
[1] [2] [3] [6] [7]
[4]
[8]
[5] [9]
Heart of Hastings Community Land While the building awaits renovation, Each exhibition install has brought heard stories of Claremont’s past
A LOOK THROUGH Trust plan to renovate 12 Claremont myself, Sara Dare (Gallery and its own challenges including broken identities - when he used rave in
UNTITLED GALLERY into an explicitly inclusive, creative
and affordable neighbourhood hub
Production Coordinator) and Tom
Lepora (Technician and Artist
windows and blown sockets! But
with each install we’ve felt closer to
the basement and sleep in the roof,
installing with Sara we imagine the
WINDOW for living, working and community
action. In partnership with Heart
Facilitator) have spent many
dusty days installing a series of
a time when we can open the gallery
and welcome our first visitors. We’ve
exhibitions and events we hope to
hold, a new home for Project Art
INSTALLATIONS of Hastings, Project Art Works will exhibitions using the window alone. spent hours discussing what has Works and the community we look
transform the ground floor of this been and imagining what might forward to being a part of.
building into Untitled Gallery. be as we work away within this old
building. Installing with Tom, I’ve Sally Bourner
Project Art Works
[1] Before works began [4] Oct 2019, In Focus by the members of [6] Jan 2020, Birds and Nests [8] June 2020, Into the Wilderness
[2] Aug 2019, Untitled by Sam Smith Tuesday Accelerate group by Michelle Roberts [9] Nov 2020, Untitled by George Smith
[3] Sept 2019, Art People Care (in Makaton) [5] Dec 2019, Untitled by Christopher Tite [7] Feb 2020, The De La Warr Pavilion
by Kate Adams by Charlie Thomas
06 | 07
You had to work that afternoon but
to you told me The Damned were
NEW ROSE playing at the Pier later on and you
knew someone who could get us in
SARAH LOCKE if I wanted to go.
It’s hard to describe the best night
of my life apart from knowing I was
drunk and the smoky raw atmosphere
First time I saw you, you were hanging We sat on the pavement, our backs and the freedom it gave me. I don’t
against that doorway covered in against the stone wall of the church think you needed that freedom quite
paint. Beautiful brown skin like you facing this strange old building- it as much as I did. You had it already.
were always in the sun, muscles hasn’t changed much in style, four
artfully sculpted to your slender floors of big arched windows reaching Returning to your building, up the
frame but a softness, a child-like a pitched roof, like a very tall home- darkened street still listening to the
touch, smooth hairless arms. Leaning YMCA still etched on the glass. But sea, I sang out, “I gotta new rose,
gracefully, a shock of dark hair and it was more run down then, peeling I got it good. Guess I knew that I
Lucy Walker is an artist maker at earring, I told myself romantically frames and old wooden shutters always would. I can’t stop to mess
Project Art Works, she is a talented you were some local boy, some covering the top floor. You were around. I gotta brand new rose in
costume designer among many fisherman’s son. And me, some painting a sign for the Photographer’s town”. You just smiled.
things. Her work spans across a city girl from far away, chasing the Studio, all gone now of course. You
wide range of media and genres. openness of the sea. Something in said you helped out printing photos We slept on the floor that night, on
Lucy takes inspiration from shows the way you stood made me pause upstairs and that you had the keys top of the blanket, gazing up through
that she loves, she has an incredible and watch you standing there and and sometimes slept over. As we a hatch in the ceiling at the stars. It
knowledge of Red Dwarf and has wait until you saw me. I must’ve smoked and talked you told me about was nothing really, just brushing lips
A TOUR OF created a universe of characters, been smiling because you caught why you loved it here and that you’d to say goodnight but I never could
costumes, short stories and my gaze and said, ‘hello,’ and offered like to take my picture. sleep after that.
12 CLAREMONT animations in response. Here we me a cigarette.
meet two of her newer characters, On the top floor, above the dark I waited until morning, frozen, not
LUCY WALKER Lister Cat and Starlight. That summer was as slow, and rooms, a large space in the rafters wanting to move and wake you with
AND TOM LEPORA Tom Lepora is an artist who
hot, and heart sinking as I’ll ever
remember, although I know I was
looking over the street was where
the prints were kept. I remember you
the creaking floorboards but at the
same time, aching for you to turn over
works at Project Art Works and only here for a week and I know I only had a black woollen blanket with a and lay your arm across me. Just some
often in collaboration with Lucy knew you that day and that night. cushion on top and a transistor radio. small contact.
Walker. Tom has a long-standing On a shelf in the window one small
history with 12 Claremont. In print of a woman with jet black hair I stand here now and I look at
October 2020, Tom, Star Light cropped close to her scalp smiling, no that building and I see your face
and Lister Cat gave Isolation make-up, with beautiful pearly teeth. reflected in each pane, peering
Station a tour of the building soon She was sitting side on with her legs from the top floor now the shutters
to be Project Art Works Gallery: pulled into her chest, chin on her have been peeled away and the
Untitled. To watch the film visit: I wrote New Rose in 2008 as part knees, a pair of drainpipes clinging to windows replaced. You look newer
isolationstationhastings.co.uk of an audio tour that could be her boyish legs. And here was me too now, a fresher face. I can tell you’re
experienced around Hastings big for drainpipes. She looked just somewhere else, somewhere beyond
and St Leonards during Shot by
the Sea Film Festiaval. I was a like you I thought, a female version of here. The windows on your floor like
studio holder at 12 Claremont you. I knew she was yours but I didn’t five fingers reach skywards, each
at the time and the piece was a say anything. You took my picture, arching frame an eyelid, blinking a
bit of a love song to the building just of my face- you said you liked kiss goodbye.
and to its previous (imaginary)
inhabitants. faces- almost in silhouette against a
section of the window or that’s how Sarah Locke
Created for Audio Tour- ‘This is Real- you described it anyway. I never did sarahlockeyoga@gmail.com
Dream On!’- Shot by the Sea Film get to see it.
Festival 2008
Project Art Works Untold Stories
PHOTOGRAPHS
TAKEN IN AND
AROUND TRINITY
TRIANGLE
Alexander Brattell
ALEXANDER https://brattell.com/
BRATTELL
10 | 11
Project Art Works Untold Stories
Hastings Library has always been
a focal point for events from THE LIBRARY PROJECT
local authors, book launches,
children’s events, arts and culture. BERNARD MCGUIGAN
We have held events for Hastings
Storytelling Festival, the Literary
Festival, Bloomsday and Hastings
Cultural Festival.
Many local authors, poets,
illustrators and performers have
held events at the library including
Brian Moses and Ed Boxall. In 2019,
local storyteller John Kirk to helped
us celebrate National Libraries Week
with a local primary school, and we
hosted an Astronomy Road Show
to celebrate the Summer Reading
Challenge. The library continues to
be an inspiration for local artists.
In previous years we have hosted
a course with the local Workers
Educational Association, making
available our resources to run a A couple of years ago when
course on the Brassey family, and the library building was being
held Making it REAL (Raising Early refurbished, I happened to cycle
Achievement in Literacy) sessions past when some of the original
with playgroups and nurseries, stone facade was being thrown
using stores, rhymes, drawing and into a skip. Being a stone sculptor,
HASTINGS LIBRARY mark making. I immediately set about rescuing
some of it. I decided after much
GILLIAN NEWMAN The Library service also supports local
groups through outreach work and
thought to recharge some of those
pieces of discarded stone into
through bringing groups into the beautiful abstract sculptures.
library. Each year we work with groups A piece of history re- imagined
and schools to help chose the East into a small work of art.
Sussex Children’s Book award.
Bernard McGuingan
We also hold weekly rhyme times, bernard-mcguigan.format.com
story times and code clubs for children
and we have regular class visits from
local school and community groups,
beavers, cubs and brownies.
Gillian Newman
08 | 09
EXPLORE
GOTHAM ALLEY
PROJECT ART WORKS
Project Art Works Untold Stories
14 | 15
Project Art Works Untold Stories
All islands are separated from
each other, but some stand alone,
while others are in pairs or groups.
The now evident architecture and
topology of the mostly bleached
islands may suggest abandonment
associated with a dystopian world.
An installation of an ongoing Responding to the times we are Modelling an idea of the individual
series of island like forms, living through, a fuller acquaintance within the collective, through
derived from found objects with the archipelago invites the viewers’ curiosity and engagement,
viewer to navigate a co-created the installation elicits questions
Plaster and pigment Lilliputian world. As observation and ideas around community and
2019 – 2020 gives way to imagination, it is relationship as well as culture and
Photos: Alex Brattell possible to mentally inhabit the environment. It has a particular
fossilized and fragile cast sculptures resonance in respect of the
as a series of islands, surrounded isolation Covid19 has inflicted
by sea. upon us all.
In September 2020, the Observer
A FULLER Building and Heart of Hastings
welcomed and supported the
ACQUAINTANCE WITH development of the project. I tested
the impact of the installation
THE ARCHIPELAGO in a large raw space within the
building and the archipelago was
SINEID CODD documented by Alex Brattell. I am
currently developing the next phase
of the project to include a diversity
of responses to the work.
Sinéid Codd
www.sineidcodd.co.uk
@sineidcodd
Project Art Works Untold Stories
THE OBSERVER BUILDING
STEVE PEAK
Until 1981 Westminster Press, the About 140 staff were made
owners of the Hastings Observer, redundant, and in September 1981
also ran a general printing and all the printing machinery in No 53
publishing trade in the big Observer was auctioned. I knew many people
building at 53 Cambridge Road. But who had worked there and knew how
then in June that year they decided to important the business had been.
abandon that work and instead focus So on a viewing day just before the
on being just a newspaper publisher. auction I went inside No 53 and took
many photos, some of which are
here.
In 2007 I wrote and published a book
“The Hastings Papers: A History
of the Hastings and St Leonards
Newspapers”, and I am currently
putting together a history of the
America Ground, where the Observer
had its print works from 1870.
Steve Peak
www.hastingschronicle.net
18 | 19
Project Art Works Untold Stories
PROJECT ART WORKS
RESIDENCY AT THE
OBSERVER BUILDING
To mark the launch of new
creative programme Art.
Freedom.Care, Project Art Works
explored the unoccupied space
in the historic Observer Building
in Hastings for a two-week
residency. Artists and makers
experimented with new ways of
working to inform the creative
programme going forward.
OBSERVER MURAL
GEORGIA SAWERSUNTOLD
STORIES
Project Art Works Untold Stories is
projectartworks.org commissioned by Trinity
@projectartworks Triangle Heritage Action
Zone and funded by
Untitled Gallery Historic England.
untitled-gallery.org
@gallery.untitled
Heart of Hastings
heartofhastings.org.uk
@heartofhastingsYou can also read
