About us

Focal Point Gallery is South Essex’s gallery for contemporary visual art, promoting and commissioning major solo exhibitions, group and thematic shows, a programme of events including performances, film screenings and talks, as well as offsite projects and temporary public artworks.

The organisation currently produces up to seven gallery exhibitions each year with an accent on the experimental and visionary use of lens-based media, in which artists and curators are given a platform to make new work in response to the gallery’s unique location on the second floor of Southend Central Library, which is housed within a classic early 1970s Brutalist civic building. Artists confirmed for 2010/2011 include Tris Vonna-Michell, Petra Bauer, Stuart Whipps, Anna Parkina, and Anja Kirschner and David Panos, while forthcoming thematic exhibitions include ‘Infermental’ and ‘Anti-Photography’.

During late 2009 and early 2010 Focal Point Gallery ran a residency programme, which enabled three artists to spend an extended period in Southend-on-Sea making work as a critical response

to the regeneration of South Essex.

The gallery is currently organising a series of ten offsite projects in and around Southend and the Thames Gateway. This new programme, funded by Arts Council England, will allow artists and curators to work with the fabric of the local environment, and enable the organisation to extend its activities beyond its headquarters and main gallery space between summer 2010 and autumn 2012.

Each programme is currently being developed to include a series of activities that will host a diverse range of artists, curators and writers, establish ongoing collaborations with international arts institutions, and engage with a wide range of local community groups.

Focal Point Gallery is a regularly funded organisation of Arts Council England. It also receives regular support from Southend Borough Council. The programme receives additional funding from other trusts and foundations and collaborates with partners including arts agencies and other organisations to co-produce projects.