Hastings homeless people captured in portraits as new seafront social project launches this week

To celebrate it’s cause it has partnered with award winning Dom’s Food Mission to creatively highlight their great work through a series of artwork pieces by local artist Andrew Harston.

The portrait exhibition captures the increasing number of faces that rely on food donations in our community.

Working together over a number of week’s the Crippled Badger team and artist were given access to capture bespoke artwork of those individuals visiting the food distribution points.

The work captures the very varied selection of people increasingly reliant on this kind of food aid. The aim of the exhibition is to raise awareness of such essential projects in our community and how people can get involved to help meet the increasing demand for such services.

Based on the seafront opposite the pier, Crippled Badger by day is a co-working creative space and café which donates 10% of profits to social change projects.

This month it is working with Dom’s Food Mission to highlight the amazing work of this independent social change food movement.

The Crippled Badger space has a hot desk area and meeting room for local creators, businesses and those working from home to use free of charge. In addition they have an artist studio which you can apply to use by emailing [email protected] as part of their monthly artist residency programme. They are also raising funds to launch this year a music studio for the community to create and record anything from podcasts to DJ mixes.

Crippled Badger Co Founder Kate Jaggers, also founder of the art house hotel Ruby’s Rooms, explained: There are so many awesome creative people in this wonderful town all with their own exceptional talent, drive and amazing projects on the go.

“My aim is to create a community space with some essential facilities where we can all come together, exchange ideas, record and celebrate this great output. By uniting it is possible to have a bigger creative impact on society that all these individuals involved, working so hard, truly deserve.

“Our aim is to have a whole lot of fun too in accordance with the spirit of this area. Serving coffee to their must try home made Mango Lemonade they are also housing lots of local chef talent too.

“We are working with some real young cooking talent in this area to give them a platform to shine experimenting with the latest street food as well as providing a more permanent space for small businesses, such as vegan cake producers Cherry Cart who have previously relied on ad hoc local markets, to sell.”

Dom’s Food Mission was founded in 2015 by husband and wife Dominic and Alexandria Warren, aiming to help feed less fortunate people and to make an impact on food waste.

To date Dom’s Food Mission has won several awards including Services to the Community and 24/7 legend award. It has donation drop off points at Spire Hospital and Morrison’s in Hastings. Dom’s Food Mission has signed partnerships with the likes of Morrison’s, Marks and Spencer’s, Tescos, KFC, Costa coffee, Sainsbury’s, Greggs and many more.

Andrew Harston is an artist, a musician and a humanitarian who is hoping to help and inspire others to find their true calling in life. He is the first artist to take residency at Crippled Badger’s artist studios and exhibit in their gallery space.

Living in Hastings, he previously successfully worked as a mechanical design engineer but seven years ago felt he could no longer work the 9-5 life style.

While in Calais, at the refugee camp known as ‘The Jungle’ he had a profound spiritual awakening! Shortly afterwards, whilst still in the camp, he found his artistic touch and after leaving Calais found himself drawing photographically. His raw talent for connecting to people and places enables him to perfectly capture a moment or expression in his work ranging from portraits to landscapes.

He was the perfect partner for this collaboration as he himself has been in situations that have made him reconsider his life path and vision. In addition to this new collection of portrait work at Crippled Badger this month he also has an exhibition at the art house hotel Ruby’s Rooms from 1st March 2020 based on his local landscape work.

For further info please email [email protected] or call 07947 762 174. Visit www.domsfoodmission.com or andyharston.wixsite.com.

See also: Sad demise of historic Hastings pub