Launching Coastal Currents

The 11^th annual Coastal Currents arts festival begins this weekend, bringing an amazing array of exhibitions, events, installations, films and music performances to the Hastings and Rother region (August 28 - September 30).

Below, East speak to organisers Lorna Crabbe and Sarah Yates of Creative Coast, to find out how the festival comes together, and to pick up the pair’s tips for the month ahead.

Before we get to them, however, here's East's own, chronological, pick of this year's Coastal Currents happenings:

1. SHARING OF THE SPRING. Bohemia Woods, Hastings. Saturday August 28, 8pm 'til late.

An illuminated, nocturnal journey through the woods, in the company of singing, mystical creatures, leading to an annointing ceremony at the hidden Roman bath. Suitable for the whole family. Meet outside Hastings Museum & Art Gallery at 8pm, and bring a torch or lantern to help guide your way.

2. FROM PIER TO ETERNITY II. Hastings seafront. Friday throughout September, 7 - 9pm.

More twilight adventures, in the form of bicycle rides along the promenade, accompanied by illuminations, music, performers, pedal-powered cinema and maybe even some amphibious bikes. The journey sets off every Friday evening during Coastal Currents. Meet outside Hastings Pier at 7pm.

3. DAY @ THE PARK. Alexandra Park, Hastings. Saturday September 4, 10am - 4pm.

A celebration of Hastings' creativity, in the form of a family fun day / village fete in beautiful Alexandra Park. Includes tug o' war, welly wanging, fancy hat competition, fair rides, stalls, walks with the park rangers, and the chance to soak a local politician of your choice! Plus plenty of live music from Section 5 drummers, Dr Savage, Sand Rabbit, Trousseaux and the Rufus Stone Band, and lots more outdoor fun.

4. ADVENTURES IN LO-FI, Bullet Cafe, Hastings. Thursday September 23, 8 - 11pm.

A gentle evening in the intimate Bullet Cafe, including a magic lantern show, films and projections, and live music from host Ed Boxall's Telltale Hearts, Tim Hoyte and Creative Coast's own Lorna Crabbe. Poetry, acoustic songcraft and Casio loving are all on the menu.

5. YOU ARE HERE. Venuu, Hastings. Saturday September 25, 9.30pm - 1am. £3 adv, £5 on the door.

Coastal Currents' finale party promises to be a far more chaotic affair than the Adventures In Lo-Fi evening (above), with organisers the Warrior Squares inviting along experimental, electronic friends such as Vile Electrodes, Deepkiss720, Stasis73 and a contingent from Brighton's Spirit Of Gravity collective. You Are Here promises to be a kaleidoscopic assault on the eyes and ears, and, if last year's party is anything to go by, very messy indeed.

CREATIVE COAST INTERVIEW:

East: How did your Creative Coast partnership come to take charge of Coastal Currents?

Lorna Crabbe: I moved to Hastings in 2007, and took part in the Coastal Currents open studios the following year- I curated a small exhibition of artists from London & Manchester, and had a launch party with a tombola performance, cakes and bibliotherapy in the bottom room of my house. I was amazed by how many people came. I didn't really know many Hastings artists by then, so it gave me a taste of the enthusiasm and support of the local arts scene, and probably half the people I know now (including some very good friends) I met through my open studio.

Sarah Yates: Lorna and I met at the end-of-festival party that year- I was running an arts e-bulletin, and Lorna was keen to get involved. We started working on that together, and when we heard Hastings Borough Council was looking to appoint a management company to run the festival, we formed our company 'Creative Coast'. We put a proposal together for Coastal Currents 2009 in collaboration with curator Christine Gist, not thinking for a minute we'd actually get it - but suddenly there we were - directors of a company, and managing a month-long arts festival. It all happened very quickly.

East: How do you select artists from the local region for the festival?

LC: There are three strands, really. People can get involved by either taking part in the open studios programme (that's approximately a hundred artists, in forty venues, this year); or they can list an exhibition or event that they're staging in our brochure and on our website; or they can submit a proposal for Place, which is a month-long especially-curated project of work in the public realm - outdoors locations and empty shops etc, rather than traditional gallery spaces.

SY: Within the festival we try to select a balance between local and regional artists and invite a few scattered internationally. The Place project and selected events (including the Smalls-Murray performance, the production Laura, the Sharing the Spring performative trail and the You Are Here festival closing-party) were commissioned by the festival.

East: Can you tell us more about this year's new Place series of artistic interventions?

LC: This year we have run the festival in a slightly different way. Sarah and I have taken on the main festival organisation, and employed Christine to co-ordinate the Place project. We advertised for people to submit proposals locally, nationally and internationally, and forwarded it to our own contacts - so for example, Lucy May Schofield is a friend of mine, an artist who lives in Manchester. I knew she was working on a new project touring the country, conducting book art bibliotherapy from a converted ambulance. I thought this would work really well in Coastal Currents, so put her in touch with Christine. Christine works widely throughout the South East and internationally, so invited some of her contacts to submit ideas. Place is certainly the most publically visible and cohesive part of the festival, and links all the way from Hastings Old Town through to Bexhill.

SY: Place exhibits a variety of work from performance, painting, sculpture and digital media. I have worked with Nathan Burr, Sharon Haward, Roz Cran and Richard Webb before, and felt that their explorative practice and interest in working in the public domain was in-keeping with our aims of the Place project. We're encouraging people to follow trails of the artworks by picking up free maps and children's activity packs that we have produced, from the Tourist Information Centre. We commissioned Brighton based illustrator Catherine Grimaldi to design children's activity packs to encourage local and visiting families to engage in the work and explore the town. 

East: Which events within the festival will you personally be taking part in?

LC: last year I was running several events and an exhibition while the festival was on, and I vowed not to do that again, as I don't think I sat down for a minute throughout September. This year I'm exhibiting in The Hastings Rarities Affair at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, and Portrait at the Conquest Hospital, and my studio The Work Ship in the Old Town is part of the open studios programme. I'm also taking part in Adventures in Lo-Fi a night of music and projections at Bullet Cafe, organised by Ed Boxall. I'll be singing along, and hiding behind a very large keyboard.

SY: I am working with other artists of Radiator Arts to create an installation of light, sound and projection called the Lost Plot at in the gardens of The School Creative Centre in Rye on the 11 September. I am also working with young people of Xtrax to put on a showcase of their work including animations, 2D and 3D sculpture. And have worked closely with Sarah Janes to put together Sharing the Spring – a performative Medieval trail throughout Summerfield Woods on 28 August at 8pm.

East: Which of this year's events are you most looking forward to, and would recommend to East's readers?

LC: I'm really looking forward to the talk Swandown by Iain Sinclair and Andrew Kotting. Together they hatched a crazy plan to pedal a swan boat from Hastings boating lake all the way to the Olympic site in Stratford, London. To me, this seems to perfectly encapsulate the Hastings spirit.

SY: For me, I am looking forward to the free Art and Space Symposium at De La Warr Pavilion on September 8, which we have specially commissioned to contextualise our Place project. We have invited 5 leading curators, including Andrea Schlieker, curator of the Folkestone Triennial, and Sue Jones, the curator of Whitstable Biennial, to discuss the use of the public domain as a gallery space. This should be a really exciting and intriguing day, providing an insight into a variety of work across the region. There are lots of other things to enjoy including Jörg Rost – rost:licht, an illuminated intervention from Hastings Pier to Harold Place, and the You are Here, experimental music night. Both these events are on the evening of Saturday September 25, and will close the festival with an exciting finale.

For more on Coastal Currents, visit www.coastalcurrents.org.uk