SATURDAY 15 APRIL 3-6PM  SUNDAY 16 APRIL 3-5PM, FREE

Four Courts Wellbeing Hub, Sydney Close, St Leonards TN38 9DD

Join us as we come together to celebrate A Town Explores A Book 2023 on the final weekend of the festival! 

On Saturday 15 April – 

3-4.30pm Jazz greats Leslee Booth and Dave Rohoman, harpists Catherine and Elizabeth Rajhans with violinists Cai Jones and Sam Brown

4.30pm Mike Willis

5-5.45pm Loud Women’s AFLO. the poet and Lilith Ai

PLUS

Education Futures Trust – Storytelling Tipi

Launch of Southern Housing’s Book Swap Booth

On Sunday 16 April:

Hastings Compost Community launches the Four Courts food waste scheme with fête food competitions:

Children’s baking competitions: best no-bake cake (up to 9 yrs), best cupcake (up to 12 yrs), best tray of biscuit (teenagers)

Open competitions: best vegetable dip, best savoury scone, best sponge cake

Foraging table: open sharing of what’s in season from the hedgerows

WITH FREE REFRESHMENTS

Many of our artists will bring their exhibitions and outdoor art from other parts of town to the Four Courts. Including:

Outdoor art sculptures and art panels
“Confidence in my own powers” – Artists Maya Ramnarine, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Peter Quinnell and Kitty McCarron. This installation tracks Mary Seacole’s journey across the globe and through her life.

“Pleasing memory” – Artist Susan Miller with Dudley Infant Academy and All Saint CE Junior Academy. Artist Susan Miller responds to Mary’s many references to flowers in her book.

“Smiling landscapes” – Artists Yasmin Aishah, Esme Fisher and Frank Moon with Tola Dabiri invite you to explore interactive music instruments in the landscape. The team is inspired by Mary’s poetical approach to describing her travels “in many lands”.

Indoor exhibitions:

Stitch TLC community exhibition
Stitch TLC are a community connected by a love of stitching, and the group takes inspiration from the way in which sewing (along with cooking and catering) was an intrinsic part of Mary Seacole’s life.

All in the Same Storm: Pandemic Patchwork Stories  – Stitch for Change by The Refugee Buddy Project

Set against the traumatic backdrop of COVID-19 and the resulting need for individuals and communities to support one another through it, the Refugee Buddy Project, Hastings, Rother & Wealden initiated an online version of Stitch for Change, a project that began in late 2019 to bring people together through storytelling and making.

They received 95 patchwork squares from people across the community, including those seeking refuge, volunteers, and Supported Education students from Hastings College. This collaboration tells diverse stories of life under the shadow of COVID-19 through hand-stitched patchwork squares that reveal tales of resistance, change, togetherness, isolation, loss and home.

All In The Same Storm presents these four quilts alongside their makers’ stories, giving visitors a glimpse of each participant’s very different experience. One patch marks the Black Lives Matter movement, another mourns the loss of college life, one depicts the strict rules of social distancing, another celebrates the role of friendship and community in hard times, and another was made in order to share stories of past generations with young children. Several share messages of solidarity with frontline workers.

Throughout the process, participants were inspired by the Chilean practice of arpillera-making: a pictorial applique technique that involved using rags and scraps of fabric to create images that were then sewn on to large pieces of cloth. Arpilleras were usually made by women to depict daily life during times of social and political hardship, recording their oppression as an act of resistance.

This project is organised by The Refugee Buddy Project, Hastings, Rother and Wealden facilitated by Jimena Pardo and Janey Moffatt as Stitch for Change.