Focal Point Gallery

"I am drawn to the stories that materials contain, and I have a vivid memory of the White Cliffs of Dover when I arrived in the UK, of thinking of them as a physical barrier beyond being a symbolic image of the country – this is the same coast that receives migrants and that is increasingly politically disputed. Chalk is made of shells of tiny marine organisms, which time has transformed into giant land masses that now form geographical borders within the current human arrangement of the territory. And the concept of migration derives from the existence of countries, as before there was just movement, travel, walking, exploring, relocating…." Lucía Pizzani (@luciapizzani ) in interview with Paul Carey-Kent (@paulcareykent ) for Artlyst (@artlyst ) Explore Faunal Succession, Lucía Pizzani's solo exhibition reimagining the Essex coast through a ‘deep time’ lens, linking geological transformation with contemporary questions of climate change, migration, and social transformation. Read the full interview via link in our bio 🔗 Come and pay us a visit - we are open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm! This exhibition is generously supported by the Lucía Pizzani Exhibition Circle: Victoria and David Law (lead supporter), Maria Sukkar (lead supporter), ERA FOUNDATION, Launch Pad, Aude Fourcade, Leslie Ramos and Thomas Forwood, Flavia Nespatti, Shelley Tichborne, Erica Wax, Sophia Paulina Wilhelmsen and those who wish to remain anonymous. 📷Anna Lukala (@anna.lukala )

🎥 Lu Williams: Souvenirs, Suburbia & Southend. Artist filmmaker George Morgan (@georgemorgan_films ) has been capturing Lu Williams (@luwilliamsdotcom ) and the making of Souvenirs & Suburbia, a major new public artwork celebrating Southend-on-Sea. The full video will be available to watch on Big Screen Southend on the day of the launch and beyond. Join us to celebrate the launch of this new commission! Meeting point: Focal Point Gallery, 5pm – all are welcome! Commission funded by Creative Estuary (@creativeestuary ) , Southend-on-Sea City Council (@southendcityc ) and Art Fund (@artfund ).

Ever wondered what goes on at Focal Point Gallery? We are very excited to launch a brand-new video all about who we are and what we do. There’s something here for everyone, including free exhibitions, creative workshops, outdoor film screenings on Big Screen Southend and more! Come and see for yourself, you are sure to receive a warm welcome, and entrance is FREE! We are based in the Forum, just off Southend High Street and open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm. Check out the gallery and find out more at our website through the link in our bio #inspiringcuriosity #art #gallery #artgallery #southend #promotion #video #photography #council

La artista venezolana Lucía Pizzani presenta hasta el 30 de mayo su primera exposición institucional en el Reino Unido, “Faunal Succession”, en Focal Point Gallery. A través de un nuevo conjunto de obras —realizado en colaboración con los artistas Cecilia Bonilla, Jaime Gili y Javier Weyler, así como con grupos comunitarios y escuelas locales—, Pizzani reimagina la costa de Essex a partir del concepto de deep time (tiempo profundo). La muestra vincula la transformación geológica con problemáticas contemporáneas como el cambio climático, la migración y la transformación social. En esta entrevista, la curadora de la exposición, Inês Costa, nos invita a recorrer la trayectoria de la artista desde sus inicios en Venezuela. Traducción de la entrevista: Juan Andrés Pizzani @pizzaniochoavisitante Venezuelan artist Lucía Pizzani presents her first institutional exhibition in the UK, “Faunal Succession,” at Focal Point Gallery until May 30. Through a new body of work—created in collaboration with artists Cecilia Bonilla, Jaime Gili, and Javier Weyler, as well as community groups and local schools—Pizzani reimagines the Essex coast through the concept of deep time. The exhibition links geological transformation with contemporary issues such as climate change, migration, and social transformation. In this interview, the exhibition's curator, Inês Costa, invites us to explore the artist's career from her beginnings in Venezuela.

"These works, in which I collaborated with artist Jaime Gili (@jaimegili ), reference William Smith’s 1815 geological map of England and Wales, the first of its kind. It was, however, a very extractive view of the land and we wanted to think about mapping the land in an inclusive way, and as the entry point for the exhibition. The paintings that form the mural are cut into organic shapes and have been painted using minerals and pigments that are the same ones as the clay sculptures in the space. These ceramics depict the snake and the spiral, symbols that I always go back to, that are linked to our own DNA on a micro level, but also to the galaxy, the macro. They are very universal shapes that go across time and history, that have always been linked with transformation and healing, themes that are recurrent in my practice. The mural ‘extends’ to the foyer of the gallery, where we included works made by children who have English as an additional language, that attend Milton Hall Primary School in Southend. They have worked with Jaime Gili on two workshops and created their personal interpretations of maps, using pigments and watercolours." – Lucía Pizzani (@luciapizzani ) Last few weeks to catch 'Faunal Succession' by Lucía Pizzani before it closes on 30 May – we are open from Wednesday to Friday, 11am to 5pm. Read more about the exhibition via link in bio 🔗 📷Anna Lukala (@anna.lukala )

Join us for the next Creative Open Day with artists, Lucía Pizzani (@luciapizzani ) and José García Oliva (@olivajosec ) leading us in two activities throughout the day. Two workshops will run side by side throughout the afternoon, welcoming people of all ages to drop in, spend time making, and leave whenever they wish. These are open, informal spaces for playful exploration, reflection, and shared creativity across generations. With Lucía, we will be using plants, dry seeds, and by drawing and shaping raw wet clay, the artists and participants will create monotypes on paper. With José, we will explore language as something physical and unstable. Using sculptural paper, poetry, and free multilingual writing, participants will experiment with words as material forms rather than fixed meanings. You can join for 20 minutes or you can stay with us the full day – you are very welcome either way! 📅 Saturday 30 May ⏰Open from 11am to 3pm 🎫Book your tickets now, link in bio

"Sci-fi themes have, in the past decade or so, served as a productive avenue for artists to critique the present and propose alternative political imaginaries. What about, though, the future’s counterpart, the past? And not so much the past capturable by human memory and historical testimony, but the eons prior to the emergence of homo sapiens – the past of deep time?" - Matthew Bowman (@matt_bowman_ ) for Art Monthly (@art_monthly_uk ) Come to see what Lucía Pizzani's (@luciapizzani ) exhibition Faunal Succession is all about! We are open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 5pm until 30 May. To find out more about the exhibition, head to the link in our bio 🔗 📷Installation views of Lucía Pizzani, 'Faunal Succession', Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, 2026. Photo: Anna Lukala (@anna.lukala )

Where do teachers find creativity and respite? 🌀Sometimes inspiration comes from a great cup of tea or the roll of a dice. Alongside teachers and artists as our co-researchers, we’re exploring different ways school staff can support their wellbeing through art. Within our ✨Creative Break Box✨, there are 6 miniature artworks and offerings. Each work reflects on our key research themes of wellbeing through creativity, collaborative education and radical rest. These artworks have been created by teachers and artists in response to their own experiences on this project with the aim of inspiring new ideas, spreading joy and offering staff time to pause during the school working day. Each box contains artworks and offerings from: Lora Aziz, Lottie Brant, Hannah Head, Nicky Garratt, George Morgan and Kate Sullivan. @loraaziz_ @lottieissyb @hmh_teach @nicky_customqueenie @georgemorgan_films @kate_sullivan01 We’re gifting 100 editions of this collection to participating schools, with a limited number available for wider Southend schools and educators. Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to request a ✨Creative Break Box✨ for your school or learning space. Design by @designprintbind Illustrations by @emerrrhhhh Photos by @amberr.merry Creative Break Time is supported by @freelandsfoundation #CreativeBreakTime #CreativeBreakBox #Creativity #Collaboration #RestIsResistance

As this is my last post, I an inviting you to listen (sound on!) and to appreciate the sound piece done in collaboration with musician Javier Weyler and the voices of artists, participants of the workshops, Focal Point staff, family and friends, most of whom migrated to this island in some point of their lives. They are reading fragments from the geological book ‘Observer’s Book of Sea and Seashore’ (1962) by I.O Evan. The diverse accents, ages, places and genders of those reading invite a plurality of perspectives into the words, originally intended to convey supposedly objective scientific truths. The exhibition is on until 30 May – the gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm, come and pay Faunal Succession a visit!

I wanted to do an appreciation post to all the people who have been collaborators in this project and to Inês Costa (@inesmarquescosta ) who curated 'Faunal Succession' and envisioned the project to tour since the start – travelling to KARST, Plymouth (@karstgallery ) and Mostyn, Llandudno (@mostyngallery ). Artist Cecilia Bonilla (@ceciliabonilla_studio ) and I developed the collage making workshops with women at Welcome to the UK (@welcometotheuk_essex ) that form part of the amber window installation on view in gallery 2. The starting point for these was the idea of hybridity through evolution and how humans are a migrant species. The collaboration with Jaime Gili (@jaimegili ) was based on mapping and fluidity of materials and pigments. He developed large-scale geological inspired canvases that are installed in gallery 3 and can be seen day and night from the square. These paintings are in dialogue with my terracotta ceramics, the powerful spiral-snake, a totem imprinted with fossils and a live fern and the chain-like ovals. Jaime also worked with children from Milton Hall, a local school, to produce artworks inspired by subjective maps and these works are included in the foyer cabinet. Special thanks to Kim Davey (@thepartypiece ) for all the support organising and reaching out to the participant community groups and the public programme we have ahead of us still! Both events below take place at the Gallery. 📆9 May, 3pm: In Conversation with author Helen Gordon, where we will be talking all things deep time. There are still places left, book on website or via link in bio 📆30 May, 11am to 3pm: Creative Open Day workshops for the final day of the show! 'How Words Fly and What Happens When They Land' with José García Oliva (@olivajosec ) and 'Clay, Plants, and Traces of Place' with me. Free and open to all - link to book your free ticket also in bio.

Traces and fossils have been a very important element in this project: our necessity to leave a trace as prehistoric humans, the start of material culture, identity are many of the primal concerns that are still with us as a species. The first 2 images are of the body imprints I did on the walls of gallery 1, thinking of creating a post-human trace fossil that might be encountered in the future by perhaps other species. Imprinting my body goes back to 2008–9 when I did this work called 'Vessel' for my MA degree show at Chelsea College of Art. I marked my body onto the wet plaster on the walls, floor and ceiling of a space I built for others to inhabit afterwards. It felt like arriving late to an event and only being able to witness traces of what happened there – imagining the movements and gestures preserved in the flesh- toned material. I chose 'Vessel' as a title given the plural concept of the word, which can refer to an enclosed container but also to a moving ship that takes you through time and space, or to blood vessels. So, I was thinking of the body as a container and a vehicle - our bodies and their fragility, our temporary condition, the connection with the matter and spiritual beings that we are and time, which is always the limit to our existence. I am also sharing images of the process of making the ceramic sculptures. I imprinted them with Ammonite fossils, that also became part of other works becoming eyes for sculptures like 'Raices elevadas #5', which combines terracota, a fossil and a live Bolivian forest cactus (last images). Photo 3 and 4 are of the making of the large scale new ceramic sculptures at Whichford Pottery (@whichfordpottery ). it was a pleasure to work with the team there once again!

Lucía Pizzani (@luciapizzani ) here taking over Focal Point Gallery's social media accounts this week to share more about 'Faunal Succession', my solo exhibition currently on view until 30 May! To begin with, I wanted to share some images of the research process that took me to different places around the British coast. The first photo is of the Ammonite pavement of the Jurassic Coast that I encountered when doing a residency at Hogchester Arts (@hogechesterarts ). I produced some of the works that are part of the exhibition there. The second photo is at Chafford Gorges Nature Park in Essex. Exploring and walking was one of the things I most enjoyed doing when working within the environmental movement in Venezuela, and with this project we had the chance to do walks around Chafford Gorges with Dean Williams, Ranger at Essex Wildlife Trust (@essexwildlifetrust ). This helped me understand the ecological importance of chalk in the region. There is a historically extractivist interest, of course, but chalk is also now being valued for its meadows, and their importance in biodiversity, particularly when thinking about insects – the focus is much more interspecies now. I was given the permission to collect some of the fallen chalk to sculpt, which is something I have never done before. And when we went to collect the chalk to bring it to my studio we all thought it was going to be very light, but it turned out to be incredibly heavy! There are all these characteristics of chalk as a material that pose questions: how can something be simultaneously so brittle and so heavy, resilient? Porous but dense? This is the basis for the whole ecology of the coast, which is increasingly being impacted by climate change with, for example, the quick sea level rise and more frequent storms contributing to faster erosion. The other images are of books, TV documentaries and local museums that I visited with curators Inês Costa (@inesmarquescosta ) and Kim Davey (@thepartypiece ) which also informed my research. 🍃