"Incomplete in the Workshop"

Wells' novella is the first British writing containing a time machine. Artists Issi and Mark Fisher have scrutinised Wells' descriptions to create ATownExploresABook20's Time Machine. Informed by the steampunk aesthetic and harnessing engineering laws and realities embedded in their practice, this husband and wife duo span art and engineering to deliver a time machine. They explore the endeavour within and beyond boundaries that invention inhabits.

Venue: Window of Teddy Tinker’s 134 London Road, St. Leonards-on-Sea, TN37 6LT.
Level access

"I told you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop."

Experience planetary shift.
It's the conjunction of the Moon & Saturn.
It's the conjunction of @BavardBar and @IsolationStationHastings
It's conjunction of the best minds in the country coming to a #BavardBar event for #ATownExploresABook20 on #IsolationStationHastings that will blow your mind. We are truly excited about the #timetravel speakers lined up!

Wednesday night's bavarders will include TV historian Simon Schaffer and Cambridge scientist Dr Ljlijana Fruk. What their passions are can't be revealed until the night, but rest assured you'll want to tune in to hear them and the rest of the BB gang.

Wednesday 15 April, 7-8pm #HGWells' #TheTimeMachine blasting into new orbits.

Facebook Live

Take up #ATownExploresABook20’s #windowpalace challenge at home.

Create H. G. Wells’ Palace of Green Porcelain in your window at home, using what’s to hand!

Inspired by a remarkable setting in Wells’ adventure novella, construct your window palace and share your photo. Use hashtag #PalaceofGreenPorcelain. Take a look at our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more.

Wells’ fantastic ruined palace setting in The Time Machine has inspired adventure writing, film and video games in the 125 years since the publication of his iconic novella. His descriptions of the mysterious Palace of Green Porcelain offer us an opportunity to consider our contemporary delight in opulent decaying architecture and historical environments of alluring fascination. We can ponder how they have become a prerequisite in the adventure genre. Wells was writing at the end of the nineteenth century when artists revelled in the wonder of the ruin. Inhabiting an imperial world, his creation of the palace is also a chance to ponder the complexities of our response to the ‘exotic’ aesthetic and our historical legacy.

A project by creative business TeddyTinker’s for atownexploresabook.com

“As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the #PalaceofGreenPorcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear." H.G. Wells

Vibrant multimedia visual responses and insights, curated by artist Juliette Dodd, exhibition in Mencap Charity Shop window
32A & B Kings Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN37 6DX


Project funded by Mencap

Perfect Conquest comprises an installation of young people's testimonies in clay, exploring experiences of challenge and struggle and the strengths gained from them, inspired by Wells' inspirational protagonist. Lead outdoor artist, Emma Harding, has worked with young artisis at Christ Church C of E Primary Academy and St Pauls Church of England Academy School this year. Arts practitioners Tatenda Michael Manyarara, Tom Harding and willow weaver Julie Gurr have also been part of this exciting project, hosted at Transition Town Hastings Vegetable Garden at Warrior Square Station. "We should strive to welcome change and challenges, because they are what help us grow. With out them we grow weak like the Eloi in comfort and security. We need to constantly be challenging ourselves in order to strengthen our character and increase our intelligence."

Access details for platform 2: nationalrail.co.uk
Funded by Arts Council England and Hastings Borough Council

Lifetime is a garden intervention of two dimensional work which could become four dimensional if the secrets of time travel are discovered. Created by Peter Quinnell, with BLACK WINKLE YOUNG ARTISTS, head to Transition Town Hastings Vegetable Garden at Warrior Square Station to view clocks that fix the times of birth of the children, counting the seconds as they travel through time. "One dial records days, another thousands of days, another millions of days and another thousands of millions."

Access details for platform 2: nationalrail.co.uk
Funded by Arts Council England and Hastings Borough Council

Susan Miller, in partnership with Dudley Infant Academy School and Southeastern Rail, has designed a vibrant multi media intervention on the station path this year at St Leonards Warrior Square Station. Variously constructed as a fourth dimension and a period of a week between two visits to the time traveller's house, time takes many guises in Wells' novella. Miller ventures beyond what time means to Wells in her project "I Intend to Explore Time", exploring what time might potentially offer us.
"I was in my laboratory at four o'clock and since then I have lived eight days...such days as no human being has lived before!"

Access: Steep gradient from London road at top, steps at bottom
Funded by Arts Council England and Hastings Borough Council

Strange Fossils in 802,701 is visual artist Morokoth Fournier des Corats first outdoor art project for the festival, an exciting mixed media intervention sited in Transition Town Hastings Vegetable Garden at Warrior Square Station. Wells' views the landscape in the year 802,701. "The big building I had left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position". Writing before the invention of plastic, Wells could not have imagined the current anxieties over plastic litter and its future impact on the environment, on land and sea. Morokoth is an illustrator who values aspects of landscape as treasures in her work. in this piece she considers the beautiful landscape of the site, laid out as a Victorian Park reflecting Wells' descriptions of abundant vegetation and exploring plastic waste forecasts. Her imaginations of fossilised plastic aim to capture the complicated relationships we have with materials that pose a future hazard but which enhance contemporary existence. zine link

Access details for platform 2: nationalrail.co.uk
Funded by Arts Council England and Hastings Borough Council

“We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave."

H. G. Wells was right, we are all time travellers, going back and forth in our memories and daydreams. THE MIND OF A TIME TRAVELLER is a series of photographs exploring time travel through the mementos, feelings and ideas of 20 local residents.

Participants were posed two questions:
WHAT IS THE PAST?
WHAT IS THE FUTURE?
Their short responses appear alongside their images.

See the project web site here.

A Past Foward Project
Dawn Dublin
Alexander Brattell

Level access.
Funded by Arts Council England and Hastings Borough Council

Which century would you choose to step into? An exhibition of millinery by Caroline Morris accompanied by artist Susan Elliott's mosaic of one of the most popular time travellers of all time: Mary Poppins. With photographs by John Ferro Sims. This exhibition continues in our twilight weeks, open Thurs-Sat 11am-4pm.

Caroline Morris
Millinery and Art

59 Kings Road, St.Leonards on Sea, TN37 6DY
01424 444410
Level access.

This outdoor installation consists is a montage of the artists' work in this dynamic collective, random responsed to Wells' words. The scattered nature of the exhibits invite us to consider the serendipity inherent in the exploration of the unknown.

Funded by The Foreshore Trust and led by artists Helen O'Leary

H.G.Wells and friends read aloud.

Believe in the power of the spoken word, an ancient tradition bringing listeners together! Details of the Covid-19 measures adapted programme released soon, as we hear results of funding this week. Please check back, we're looking forward to sharing these words together.

The Bookkeeper Bookshop

Festival partner, Rebecca, owner of clothes shop Who's Wearing What Boutique, has created a festival window display inspired by H. G. Wells’ words "carrying a chain of beautiful flowers, altogether new to me". Wells’ gives his time traveller a rosy first impression of the year 802,701, abundant in floral bloom.

Please share images of yourself with flowers to make a symbolic chain. We are also sharing images of chains of flowers used by artists for centuries to symbolise aspects of personality and life. Please share photos to social media with hashtag #chainofbeautifulflowers or email explore@atownexploresabook.com.

Thank you so much to Rebecca of Who's Wearing What Boutique for this #ATownExploresABook20 project launched this flower Friday!