As the year comes to a close, we want to express our gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the Art, Freedom, Care studios and workshops. The artist makers who join us each week, bringing creativity and passion, an amazing group of artist facilitators who do so much to support everyone, and the parents and carers who have become a big part of our community and shared their lives with us.

Work continues into 2025 as work on site at the Arches in Hastings takes shape. Renovations will greatly improve the Arches, resurface the front yard and provide completely new studio spaces in Arch 3. As part of the funding for the site we have received over £70,000 for a lift and Changing Place facilities from the Hastings Skills Capital Fund. The funders for the Arches development are: Arts Council England, Wolfson Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, Clothworkers Foundation, Foyle Foundation, and Levelling Up Partnership funding (who have also funded some of the development work at Trinity Hall as well as the Architectural Heritage Fund).

Michelle Roberts: Red, Blue, Up 22 February – 1 June 2025 De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill Image: Michelle Roberts, Hastings, 2009, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 122 cm. Courtesy Project Art Works. De La Warr Pavilion is pleased to present Red, Blue, Up, a major new exhibition of paintings and drawings by Bexhill-based artist, Michelle Roberts, in the First floor gallery this spring. This solo exhibition is programmed in collaboration with award- winning arts charity Outside In, following the artist winning first prize in its national open exhibition, Humanity, in 2023, and Project Art Works, a neurodiverse collective of artists and activists based in Hastings, of which Roberts is a member.

Project Art Works has been awarded the Hastings Skills Capital Fund. We have received over £70,000 for a lift and Changing Place facilities to be installed in the newly built Arch 3 which is due to reopen in summer 2025. Image: Architect drawing of the Project Art Works Changing Place, August 2023, courtesy of Adams & Sutherland (click to enlarge) One of eleven projects designed to support training and boost employability across Hastings and Rother, this funding is a share of Government funding worth £1 million.

A film featuring five artists from Project Art Works and those closest to them is currently being screened as part of The Whole World in our Hands in Toronto, Canada. The Blackwood gallery have worked with curator Jacqui Usiskin on this multi site installation across the University of Toronto Mississauga. Images: Mikhail Karikis, I Hear You, 2019/2024. Special edition for The Blackwood. Single-channel video without sound, 20:57. Originally commissioned by De la Warr Pavilion and Project Art Works, UK.

Five of Project Art Works artists have had work selected for an online exhibition, Cordially Invited, curated by Make Studio. Make Studio is a supported studio based in Baltimore and the online exhibition is running alongside a physical one that is open at the same time. The artists whose work has been selected are: Gemma, Lucy Jenion, Mark Lockton, George Smith and Jakob Wright. Visit the online exhibition here: make-studio.