About Us.
Home Live Art is an artist-led, queer-led creative arts organisation based in Hastings. It is dedicated to developing new sites and audiences for culture by supporting artists to develop their work and building strong local communities through creativity.
Our Vision.
Our vision is for a creative community where everyone can feel at home, and where Live Art is a radical and inclusive way of exploring and understanding the world.
We believe that Live Art is a way of thinking about what art is, what it can do, and where and how it can be experienced.
Our Mission.
Our mission is to electrify and diversify the cultural ecology in the towns of South East England through bold programming and innovative community-led work.
We are…
Risk taking – in what we do and how we do it, and enable others to do the same
Inclusive – actively working to break down hierarchies, within the arts and within society
Resourceful – our practice is collaborative and sustainable, making the most of what we have.
We will…
Listen – we respect the views and experience of others
Learn – we all have something to teach each other and we never stop learning
Play – we don’t take ourselves too seriously and know how to have fun.
Our Goals.
Develop new sites and audiences for live art and experimental performance in Hastings, South East England and beyond.
Create the ideal conditions for local, national and international artists to develop and present their work.
Support and enable creative opportunities led by and for local residents.
Ensure multiple voices are heard, centring those that are often marginalised.
Contribute to the creative ecology of where we work, through collaboration with the widest range of partners and through being open to new ideas.
The Team.
Katy Baird — Artistic Director
Katy Baird took up the role of Artistic Director of Home Live Art in April 2018.
She is an artist, curator and producer of Live Art based in the South East of England.
As an artist she has performed at Live Art festivals and venues as well as squat parties, clubs and raves.
Her recent solo performance ‘Workshy’ has toured internationally to over 30 cities. Since 2016 she has been artist in residence at queer club night Knickerbocker.
As a Curator she co-produces Steakhouse Live, a DIY platform for radical performance practices and previously worked as Coordinator at the Live Art Development Agency from 2012-2017. She has also worked as an independent producer at Fierce Festival (Birmingham) and Manchester International Festival.
Duckie — Executive Director
From their legendary 22-year weekly residency at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to winning Olivier awards at the Barbican, Duckie are purveyors of progressive working class entertainment who mix live art and light entertainment.
They combine vintage queer clubbing, LGBT heritage, social archeology and quirky performance art shows with a quintet of socially engaged culture clubs.
As committed grafters and public servants, Duckie produce about 100 events and 100 workshops each year – mostly in London and the South East – and our annual audience is about 26,000 real life punters.
Duckie is run by Dicky Eton and Simon Casson.
Our History.
Laura Godfrey Isaacs and Mimi Banks launched Home Live Art in December 1999 with a site-specific visual arts exhibition produced in Laura’s family home in Camberwell, South London. The company continued to use the house as a venue for public exhibitions and then, more predominantly, performances and events for the next 7 years. Home Live Art became well known for its “Salons”, programming intimate works that explored the unique domestic context, the relationship between art and life, and the dynamic between site, performer and audience.
In 2005, Home Live Art directors brought the salon series to a close in order to explore making work in other sites and contexts. The company produced The Church Ale Festival, a landmark site specific performance arts festival that same year in rural mid-Suffolk. This project set the scene for Home Live Art’s current specialism in developing work that responds sensitively to location and context, and our commitment to bringing live art performance practice to accessible contexts and engaging new audiences.
In 2012, after 13 years, Laura Godfrey Isaacs, resigned as co-director. Co-founder Mimi Banks joined by long term associate producer Jane Greenfield jointly lead the company until Katy Baird took over in 2018.
Home Live Art Board Members.
-
Rosie Cooper was appointed the Director of Wysing Arts Centre in September 2021. Prior to this she worked as Head of Exhibitions at the De La Warr Pavilion from 2016, where she developed a distinctive new curatorial vision for the institution that combined local operations with global context, making use of DLWP’s history and location to consider the role of cultural institutions in civic life.
She was previously Head of Programmes at Liverpool Biennial. In 2016, she led the team to present new commissions by 44 artists across 21 sites. She was previously curator of the public programme at Barbican Art Gallery. She has edited and contributed to a number of publications and catalogues.
-
Polly Gifford has had an eclectic career in arts management and production. She is currently Executive Director of international touring theatre company Complicité.
Previously she was Culture Regeneration Manager for Hastings Borough Council, Director of Bridport Arts Centre in Dorset and Head of Education at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill.
She also runs an annual music festival for local campaigning group Hastings Supports Refugees and was a co-initiator of climate action movement Culture Declares Emergency.
-
Mathilda Gregory is web developer, writer and performer. She’s written for The Guardian, Buzzfeed, Zombies, Run! and Black Lace.
She is the host of Fat Cabaret – a variety show for fat performers – and she makes performance about bodies, sexuality and technology.
She is currently working on a project to use machine learning to create fairisle knitting patterns. Her work in tech can be found at mathildagregory.co.uk
-
Anna-Maria Nabirye is a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, visual arts, social practice, theatre, film, TV and fashion. Anna-Maria was recently commissioned by Cements Fields for the Whitstable Biennale 2022 and is under commission from the De La Warr Pavilion for a full exhibition of her on-going work Up In Arms.
In 2020 Nabirye co-founded Afri-Co-Lab, a creative community dreaming space in St Leonards-on-Sea, that showcases and supports the work of local artists with an emphasise on Black & POC artists. Afri-Co-Lab emerged from AfroRetro their ethical upcycling and fashion brand, between both entities they have had partnership projects with Black Cultural Archives, Royal Court, V&A, Southbank Centre, Brighton Museum, De La Warr Pavilion and awarded Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects Africa residency.
-
Nikki Tomlinson is a producer and dramaturg with a background in curation and performance-making. Over the past 20 years she has developed interests in performance, participation, social justice and interdisciplinary, advocacy for and with artists and widening access in every sense to experimental work. In March 2020 she joined Independent Dance (ID) as co-director.
Her previous roles have included Lead Artist Advisor/Producer at Artsadmin and co-Chair of Chisenhale Dance Space. Alongside her role with ID she continues to work freelance, supporting choreographers and visual artists to produce projects across the UK and internationally as well as developing her practice as a dramaturg.
Past Board Members.
Misa Von Tunzelman
Richard Dedomenici
Laura Sweeney
Martin J Gent
Richard Layzell
