Culture

Hastings Contemporary is excited to present the first major solo exhibition in a UK gallery of work by the leading German-Brazilian artist, Janaina Tschäpe. Filling Hastings Contemporary’s largest gallery space, the exhibition features a dramatic new series of paintings and works on paper created by Tschäpe in direct response to her experience of visiting the wet and stormy Hastings in the winter of 2025. The works will be complemented by a film piece.

Moore / Freud will be the first exhibition to explore the distinctive ways in which Henry Moore and Lucian Freud drew upon familial bonds and intimate relationships as crucial sources of artistic inspiration. Bringing together a focused selection of 20 works, including maquettes, works on paper, and paintings, the exhibition presents two towering figures of the 20th century side by side through a shared and deeply personal theme.

This summer, Hastings Contemporary is delighted to present the first solo show in a major UK gallery of work by the internationally celebrated Argentinian-born artist, Miguel Rothschild. Referencing the unique location of Hastings Contemporary as a gallery facing the sea and situated directly on the beach, the exhibition will include a dramatic new, site-specific seascape installation, shown alongside recent works which explore the elemental power of the sea.

What writer hasn’t been asked: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ It’s a cliché perhaps, and a notoriously difficult question to answer. But for the writer of SCREAMS FROM THE ATTIC, a chilling new theatrical experience arriving this September at The Stables Theatre, the answer is easy – the idea began with two dead cats in a pub.

The Hastings Comedy Festival is excited to announce its complete 2026 line-up, with over 90 performances taking over venues across Hastings and St Leonards from 1st June to 7th June 2026. Audiences can expect comedy favourites such as Taskmaster champion Maisie Adam, internationally renowned stand-up and podcast host Red Richardson, Mock The Week regular Rhys James, and viral comic and writer Joe Wells at this year’s Festival.

Holly Dawes is a ceramicist based in Hastings whose work is deeply connected to the local landscape

This summer, I spent a wonderful afternoon at Fairlight Hall, enjoying a picnic in the beautiful gardens and a stunning piano recital performed by previous finalists of the Hastings International Piano Competition. This was my introduction to the Competitionand its year-round programme of concerts, which arepart of a long tradition ofworld-class classical musicin Hastings. (I didn’t know this, but Rachmaninov played at The White Rock Theatre twice in the 1930s!)

“I get things done” says Dawn Dublin, as we sit down together to chat about her company, Black Butterfly. Amidst dashing outside to tell a random passer-by how cool he looks and cuddling her hot chocolate, she tells me about a phone call she’s just had on her walk here involving motherhood, miscarriage and marginalization. I can already hear the cogs whirring in her head, ideas sprouting of what she (or we as a community) can do to support people in these situations. There’s

Oh no, there isn’t! Pantomime audiences at The White Rock Theatre’s Jack and the Beanstalk are in for a real treat this Christmas. I know this first-hand, as I was lucky to spend a side-splitting day last week with Mark Two, the traditional pantomime dame playing Dame Tilly Trott. Mark Two is appearing as part of a talented panto cast including Richard Blackwood as Jack and Tim McArthur returning as Fleshcreep by popular demand. The whole theatre is being transformed fo

If you’re a child of the 70s or 80s, the word ‘wrestling’ might conjure up thoughts of Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks and Saturday afternoons huddled round the big telly, booing whilst slurping a carton of E numbers through a skinny straw.

Richard Upton is a creative entrepreneur, a visionary, a lover of art, architecture, sculpture, people, history and community. He is passionate about the ‘quality of place’ no matter whom or what the place is for. He is from humble beginnings in Stepney, East London. “There wasn’t a lot of money at home but there was love. So I’ve always been entrepreneurial out of necessity and adversity,” he says.

If you were to write a recipe for TYGERMYLK's music, it would be a heady mix of unimpeachable purity, authenticity, resistance and emotional intelligaece. A rare feast indeed.

A Play by Local Twin Sisters, Anna and George

So much more than a small seafront shop, the Full Moon Revolution on White Rock does sell intricate and colourful handmade kilim rugs created by Kurdish women in Iraq, but is also a community space and a centre for social impact.

In the depths of last winter, musician and sonic artist Isobel Anderson found herself alone at an Abba night in a caravan park in Romney Sands. She’d booked a week-long stay in the flat, featureless coastal landscape near Dungeness, to creatively explore the subject of existential grief for a new project, End Times. And it’s fair to say Abba hadn’t featured in her plans.

This September, artist Sophie Barber opens her show, Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry at Hastings Contemporary. Like many great stories, this is a journey that starts here, travels the world, sort of, and returns home triumphant. Born in 1996, it has taken less than thirty years to have a museum show of international importance in the town of her birth.

Friday saw the launch of three new major exhibitions at Hastigs Contemporary Gallery at Rock-a-Nore.

Alexandra Park has been awarded the best tennis Park Venue of the Year and Hastings based Joe Adams has won Coach of the Year at the Lawn Tennis Association Awards. In light of these awards, Get Hastings chatted with Joe and Ross Cudmore, who coach from the park, to find out how they’re breaking the exclusivity of tennis and proving anyone can play.

Tullis Rennie is a sound-explorer of many parts: part improvising trombonist, part electronic musician and part composer. Often to be found performing live around town, sometimes accompanied by digital animations and alongside many local collaborators. I chatted with Tullis about his work, background and musical style.

Words by Gareth Stevens Portrait by Piers Golden Artworks by Richard Butchins I meet with Richard Butchins in his windowless studio along...