Running alongside the Brighton Festival, the Artists Open Houses Brighton event sees local homeowners throw open their doors so that perfect strangers can wander in and snoop around, all in the name of art. And with the UK’s obsession with property, TV programmes dedicated to the subject of other people’s houses and the city’s love of art, it’s no wonder that the event is so popular every year.

Home Is Where The Art Is
Artists Open Houses Brighton is the UK’s largest free visual arts festival and it is returning in May 2009, bigger and better than ever before, to run alongside the Brighton Festival. Over 1000 artists and makers are expected to attend the event that will see over 200 homes throw off domesticity to become art galleries for the duration. For the first time ever, this year’s event also includes curated exhibitions that explore the themes of ‘Art and Domestic Space’ under the umbrella theme of 'House'.

More About House
For the first time in 2009, the Artists Open Houses Brighton event branches out to include four exhibitions that fall under the broad theme of ‘House’. Eclectic and incredibly inventive, the new exhibition elements really showcase why Brighton’s artistic community and the city’s architecture is so feted across the UK and serve to explore the question of how domestic space and art interact. The first of the exhibitions is an arrangement of red velvet cinema seats and a traditional projector so that someone’s home is transformed before your very eyes into a mini cinema. Humour and subversive sculpture are bound together for the second exhibition which features kinetic furniture and highlights the all-too-often uncomfortable disparity between the seductive promise but often disappointingly dysfunctional design of consumer products in reality. An exhibition by marginalised artists is another important element of the Artists Open Houses Brighton event which gives artists (many of whom have experienced homelessness, life in care homes or are housebound) a platform to express themselves, whilst the final element questions ideas about domesticity and gender using a 3D virtual screen-dance installation.

Free Events
With so much to see, knowing where to start could be pretty daunting but thankfully the Artists Open Houses Brighton organisers are already a few giant strides ahead and have compiled handy trails, grouping houses together by area so that it’s easy to take in the highlights on foot. Over 200 houses, studios and gardens across Brighton and Hove and the surrounding area have opted to change their use to galleries for the duration of the event making for an eye-opening event and the chance to explore the city in a way that you’ve never been able to do before, no matter how many years you’ve lived in Brighton. Entry to all of the houses is free and you’ll be able to see artists in action plus admire swathes of art that spans many different mediums including ceramics, furniture, stained glass, jewellery, furnishings, textiles, printmaking, sculpture and painting.

Affordable Art From The Artist
It’s hard not to be inspired by an event that brings together so many passionate and talented individuals. Seeing pieces displayed in a domestic setting makes it easier to imagine how they would look in your own home and if you do fall in love with an item, you’ll be able to buy it at an affordable price direct from the artist who made it with such care, without paying the usual gallery mark-ups.

Top Picks
Celebrating art as a whole, there are no wrong or right things to love or find inspiring at this event but if you would like to enjoy it through the eyes of the professionals, you can. Simply sign up for one of the artist led tours or pop along to the ‘Selectors’ Choice’ exhibition that picks out the most dynamic and original pieces.

The Artists Open Houses event is free and takes place at houses, studios and gardens across Brighton for four weekends in May to coincide with the Brighton Festival which runs from 2nd May-24th May 2009.

The weekends that the Artists Open Houses events are taking place are 2nd May-3rd May, 9th May-10th May, 16th May-17th May and 23rd May-24th May 2009.

For more information, please click on the link below.

Artists Open Houses Official Site