Today's idea - Touch Art Touching You: BlindArt for the senses

Touching Art Touching You isn't just an Abba-pun, it's a good exhibition currently going on at Hove Museum & Art Gallery. It sees a break-down of traditional barriers by actively encouraging visitors to experience and explore art through touch and other senses.

"The experience challenges the notion that sight is essential for creating and enjoying exceptional art.  The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and installations, including sound, drawn from the permanent collection of BlindArt. This comes from not only visually impaired artists but also sighted artists, and challenges the public to tell the difference."

All works in this exhibition are made accessible to a diverse audience through touch, audio description, large print and Braille labels. It sounds lovely: the curiosity of what differs between partially sighted and sighted artists, and what it's actually like: I've never seen anything quite like it and will be going to see it at the weekend.

It's running until 5th September 2010.
Cost: Free
Time: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10am-5pm; Sunday 2-5pm
Website: here
Location: Hove museum & Art Gallery
Map: here

Today's idea - Precious

Today, we recommend Precious - an exhibition at Hove Museum in which it is promised that "nothing is what you expect." The Museum commissioned eight artists and makers to create new pieces, and nine to exhibit existing works. Precious, therefore, is the result.

The pieces speak of art, and it is not always obvious how the materials started life. Waste paper and fabric are transformed, landscapes made from computer parts. Books, parts of furniture, drink cans are all reclaimed and re-made.
Coming from all over the country and selected from 300 applicants, the makers reflect all aspects of contemporary craft in Britain today. For anyone who has ever glanced at a second hand item and wondered where it came from, these artists explore where these objects can take you. Their work will inspire and amaze.

The exhibition runs until April 23, entry is free and Tue-Sun the Hove Museum is open 10am-5pm, and Sun 2-5pm.

Today's idea - The Moving Image Exhibiton

Today, "See movement and time unfold" at Hove Museum in their new exhibition which opened last week. The exhibition, The Moving Image, contrasts how movement is shown in both photography and art, and whilst aimed at families, children, and students, it looks set to be interesting for all human beings.

"Eadweard Muybridge was a 19th century photographer who was the first to develop photographic sequences of moving objects. Placing studies in his famous series Animal Locomotion alongside paintings, engravings and drawings selected from Brighton & Hove Museums’ Fine Art Collection, reveals how artists can represent movement even within a static image.

Muybridge’s studies – including cats, horses and elephants – show his understanding of motion as an event taking place in a sequence of phases. Traditionally in fine art, however, movement is communicated through a single significant moment. The Moving Image illustrates the many ways in which we can ‘see’ movement and time unfold."

The Moving Image will be accompanied by activities for families, such as the creation of flicker-books and optical toys.

Moving Images is free and runs until September the 1st. Find it on the top floor of the Hove Museum, and find it on the map here.

Visit the 'War Stories' exhibition at Hove Museum

A bit of a press release today as I am somewhat unwell. This will be improved upon when I am not unwell.

Today Hove Museum and Art Gallery is running an exhibition entitled 'War Stories' - which has free entry - something that's always nice.

"War stories tells the story of the Home Front in Brighton and Hove during the Second World War, using photographs from the archive of the Brighton Herald Newspaper.
The images remind us many aspects of Wartime experience, including air raid precautions, evacuees, bomb damage, funding drives, troop parades and victory celebrations.

The exhibition also includes extracts from the Herald newspaper, such as new reports, editorial comments and readers' letters. These help tell the stories behind events and characters portrayed in the photographs. Sometimes dramatic, but often mundane, these show that local experiences of the war were often more complex and ambiguous than the photographs suggest."

The exhibition runs until the 31st of this month. Find directions & more info here