Having been awarded a grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to explore and share the folklore, heritage and history of Sussex, Story Maps will see learning disabled, autistic and neurodivergent artists from the Figment Arts Studio work with museums along the south coast, making artwork and running creative workshops for people to learn about the colourful heritage of their local area.

Working in partnership with Worthing, Newhaven and Hastings museums with support from University of Chichester’s Centre for Folklore and Fairytales, Figment Arts will immerse themselves in local communities to research and investigate the heritage of each place — taking field visits, exploring museum collections, telling stories, singing songs and speaking to people.

The artists will produce their own interpretations of what they find. Figment Arts will work with communities to produce massive collaborative visual ‘story maps’ of their local places and will publish a visual guide to the stories and the locations where they can be found.

Thanks to support from Artists Open Houses and Hanningtons Brighton, Figment Arts launch their project this May, at number 2 Hanningtons Lane.  They will be exhibiting art work from their Brighton Fringe Award-Winning Artists’ Open House and inviting people to drop in to tell their stories, browse the pop-up folklore library, and take part in a collaborative painting.  They will be open from 11am-4pm on 5^th, 11^th, 12^th 18^th and 19^th May.

Find out more about the Hanningtons Lane exhibition here, and more about Figment Arts more widely here. You can also follow Figment Arts on Instagram.