A Nomadic Gallery
Here at Sussex Contemporary, we celebrate, support, and promote contemporary creatives across all areas of creative output, be they artists, makers, designers, architects, and craftspeople, providing them with opportunities to showcase their work.
We have a vibrant annual programme of major global-standard exhibitions, a mix of judge-panel-selected exhibitions with prize packages, alongside our democratic exhibition model, where creatives purchase a place and are automatically included in the exhibition. Both exhibition models are incredibly important to our output, and we don’t believe in a hierarchy of presentation, showing both types to the same standard, based on the belief (and proof of concept) that a well-curated exhibition and the programming around it enable excellence.
We introduced democratic exhibition opportunities into our programming to increase the support we offer within the creative sector and to provide opportunities to be included in curated exhibitions beyond the traditional judge-selected open call model.
THE SUSSEX - Where it all started
Our annual exhibition, The Sussex, is the largest showcase of art by living artists with a connection to Sussex in the world. It attracts thousands of visitors annually and is open to artists, makers, and craftspeople at all stages of their careers. First presented in 2022 at the i360 in Brighton and now shown annually in Newhaven at the BN9 STUDIOS, this is our major annual prize-awarding exhibition that has gained traction year upon year. We have 4 major prizes, 500 artists who have shown with us over the past 4 years, and thousands of artists who have trusted us to enter their work for our esteemed judges to see. We’ve worked with these amazing individuals to select the very best snapshot of contemporary practice here in the UK:
Dinah Casson MBE - Julian Bell - Chris Kendall - Alex Leith - Mark Herald - Maev Kennady - Pierre Ikovitz - Lindsey Mendick - Stephanie Fuller - Philippa Hobson - Jenny Kilbride - Ruth Howard - Tessa Wild FSA - Dr Hope Wolf - Dr Tanya Harrod - Patrick Grant
The Business Of Art
Alongside our exhibitions, we also provide a series of workshops and talks, called ‘The Business of Art’. These talks and workshops are carefully tailored to support the creative practices of artists, makers, and craftspeople, helping them achieve greater commercial success. Now being embedded in further education at 20 universities across the UK, we are incubating something even more meaningful and will be sharing our new venture with you very soon…
CREATING CREATIVE PLATFORMS
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CREATING CREATIVE PLATFORMS *
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
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UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS *
THE SUSSEX 2026:SHELTER
NEWHAVEN
November 7th - 29th
Thursday - Saturday 11 am - 4 pm
Sunday 11am - 3pm
Selected from 1,217 entries, the exhibition presents an extraordinary breadth of contemporary practice, from painting, print and photography to sculpture, textiles, mixed media and installation.
SHELTER invited artists to consider what it means to seek, create, inhabit or lose a place of safety. The resulting exhibition explores shelter in its widest sense: home and landscape, belonging and displacement, protection and vulnerability, memory, identity and the spaces — physical and emotional — that we build around ourselves.
THE SUSSEX has grown into one of Sussex Contemporary’s landmark annual exhibitions, creating a space where established artists sit alongside emerging voices and where visitors can discover work they may not encounter anywhere else.
Come and experience the exhibition in person, spend time with the work, discover new artists and see how more than a hundred individual responses come together to tell a much bigger story.
Creative Opportunities
CLICK ON EACH IMAGE TO BE TAKEN TO THE OPEN CALL OPPORTUNITY
UNFOLD 2027
PASSAGE 2027
Creating Opportunities Through Partnership
Alongside our own exhibition programme, Sussex Contemporary works with established cultural organisations to create opportunities for artists through open-call exhibitions. These collaborations bring contemporary work into different settings and connect artists with new audiences.
In 2026, this work included Inspired By Standen: The Future of Arts & Crafts at Standen House & Gardens, Resonance, our inaugural partnership exhibition with Fabrica in Brighton, and a major open exhibition, Odyssey, with Hastings Contemporary, bringing together more than 150 artists.
Each project offered a different context for artists to share their work, reflecting our focus on making exhibition opportunities accessible and bringing contemporary art to wider audiences.
Building on this experience, our Creative Director, Jo Myles, is developing WEARE, an initiative exploring how Sussex Contemporary's experience in the commercial sector could be applied within established cultural organisations. The ambition is to develop a new model that helps organisations navigate the challenges of funding in the UK arts sector while creating further opportunities for artists.
OUR APPROACH
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EXHIBITIONS
Sussex Contemporary runs a vibrant programme of art exhibitions, a mix of national and regional opportunities presented in Sussex.
After 3 years of running selected and judged projects, we introduced democratic exhibitions into our annual programming. This has been done in the belief that well-curated exhibitions bring cohesion to themed exhibitions regardless of how the work came together.
Our exhibitions take place across the country, including in Brighton, Ditchling, Lewes, Newhaven, Hastings, East Grinstead and Plumpton.
With our planning reaching as far forward as 9 years, we are fully committed to delivering excellent art programmes and exhibtions within the county
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INSPIRATION
The rolling Downs and Sussex coastline have inspired artists for centuries, including some of the most celebrated artists who have ever lived. Picasso, Miró, Man Ray, Moore, Constable, Turner, Burra, Grant, Bell, Beardsley, Ravilious, Nash, and Grayson Perry all have links with Sussex.
We have spent the last four years building up a vibrant and exciting community of creatives and art lovers, bringing over 25k visitors to the region.
Listening and observing the creative sector is really important to the work we are doing. We use a 360-degree feedback model across all our projects, enabling critical, informed growth that supports the creatives and the work we do here at Sussex Contemporary.
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PARTNERSHIPS THAT WORK
Jo founded the company as a commercial entity, something we are incredibly proud of.
In a time when it’s becoming increasingly challenging to raise funds in the public, charity and non-profit cultural sector, we can, and do, support beyond the work we are doing with the creative community.
Our partnership with HASTINGS CONTEMPORARY is a dynamic example of the work we are doing to support the region's existing museums and galleries.
We have both committed to a 6-year partnership under a revenue-sharing model, in which we are working together to deliver a groundbreaking opportunity for contemporary artists and introduce a new revenue stream into the establishment’s funding model. It’s a biannual project that we are very much looking forward to developing and growing the partnership in the years to come.
Alongside the work we do supporting the existing sector, we have also formed ,excellent corporate and commercial sponsorship and partnership relationships that deliver equal value to both parties.
If you are interested in having a chat about a potential relationship do drop Jo an email at jo@sussexcontemporary.com