Explore the real life stories of Hastings people online

The result? Tressell's Children, an atmospheric art and history immersive show, held in a recently uncovered space in St Andrew's Mews. This week, MSL launches a digital recreation of the show, accessible from anywhere in the world.

The web-based photogrammetry work by Adam Glen recreates online the experience of exploring the immersive experience and archives material.

Hastings’ Tressell’s Children was a ground-breaking project inspired by Robert Tressell’s novel of working-class experience in the early 20th century with its foundations in a 1985 oral history project. The project had recorded the stories of those who lived in Hastings between the first and second world wars.

Over the summer of 2023, workshop participants revisited and explored these largely unknown stories of the town’s people alongside professional artists and historians. They found new ways of telling these tales and gave old voices new life in the form of writing, graphic and digital art.

The project culminated in a rapturously received immersive late summer exhibition and VR experience at the recently uncovered Beyond The Door gallery in St Andrews Mews. Due to public demand, it was shown again in December 2023.

Visitors were invited to put on a headset and be transported by the memories. The exhibition included The Song of Shadows, a film by local filmmaker, Rebecca Marshall. It also drew on the innovative adaptation of the book as a graphic novel by Scarlett and Sophie Rickard and included evocative sound pieces by Mary Hooper and Aram Zarikian and a moving installation by Susie Warren.

This week, MSL launches a web-based photogrammetry work by Adam Glen that recreates authentically the experience of exploring the show and archives material online for everyone to access for free.