Free exhibitions set to wow visitors

Cash, Clash and Climate is part of the Coastal Currents arts festival while Changing Places, is part of a national tour of artists’ video, curated by the arts organisation Film and Video Umbrella. Hastings museum and art gallery is one of eight venues on this tour and is hosting two contemporary artworks amongst its historic collection - a large-scale video projection showing an abandoned power station in the north of India, and a newly commissioned installation of objects and sound that is inspired by the museum’s colonial artefacts and their collector Lady Brassey.

Cllr Kim Forward, Deputy Leader of Hastings Borough Council and lead member for Regeneration and Culture says the exhibitions are a real coup for the town. “We are so proud of Hastings museum and art gallery and its success in gaining exhibitions such as this, which continue to be free to the public,” he said.

“We are delighted to be a key partner in this innovative tour curated by Film and Video Umbrella (FVU).

“Changing Places enables us to bring to Hastings high-calibre contemporary artworks that link with the museum’s fine historic collections and associations with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

“Cash Clash and Climate has a particular local resonance for us, and I am delighted that locally based Maslen and Mehra have chosen the Hastings museum and art gallery for their installation.”

Changing Places (which runs until October 29) was developed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of India’s independence and Partition.

Maslen & Mehra in collaboration with street artists, Shuby and Delete have created the framework Cash, Clash and Climate (which runs until November 12) to ask questions about the complexities of living today and they invite viewers to follow their train of thought. Maslen & Mehra consider their more recent work to be ‘micro’. By that, they mean they are honing in on specific political and environmental dilemmas. This requires a completely different methodology to previous work in order to explore detailed narratives. The sculptures in their current series have been based on ceramic plates researched in museums around the world.

Cllr Foward says the artists are based in St Leonards, so the museum is particularly pleased to show their work at the Hastings museum and art gallery as part of the Coastal Currents festival. The installation includes a large plate, ‘Natural Capital’, which is based on one of the museum’s collection highlights, a 16th century Italian majolica dish.

Visit: www.hmag.org.uk