MKL - Medway & Kent Lens 2026

Open call by The Black Art Hub CIC

Black Photographers, filmmakers and videographers are invited to submit work for Black History Month: MKL 2026 (Medway & Kent Lens), responding to the theme “Unapologetically Black”

Submit here

Find out more on The Black Art Hub website

Beyond Lace: Translating Lace Through Contemporary Practices

An exhibition by Courtney Cook exploring how lace can move beyond its familiar place in craft and become a starting point for contemporary art.

Drawing on Courtney’s experience of making bobbin lace, the project looks closely at the structures, spaces and repeated gestures that give lace its form. Through printmaking, photography, stitch and experimental materials, she translates those qualities into new images and objects. Some works preserve a trace of the original lace; others crop, enlarge, layer or disrupt it until something unexpected emerges.

The exhibition also considers the histories held within lace: the time spent making it, the hands that have handled it and the memories attached to pieces kept or passed on. Donated lace and collaborative contributions extend the project beyond Courtney’s own practice, bringing other people’s materials and stories into the work.

Beyond Lace invites visitors to look again at a material often described as delicate or decorative, and to see its potential as a structure, an archive and a space for transformation.

Can you feel me in the swells?

Lux Orion

Lux orion (b. 1994) is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose artistic practice delves into identity through explorations of queerness and transsexuality; home in the body and in nature; folklore and folk customs; and the unending journey of grief and healing.

He combines sculpture, painting, photography and fibre arts to develop personal, layered works which invite the viewer into their world of salt marsh, self-acceptance and continual transformation.

'Can you feel me in the swells?’ the debut solo show by Lux Orion, reimagines earthly tethers and deep longing through an array of mediums and artistic practices. linking the physical realm – home, the north kent marshes and mud flats – with the spiritual – folklore and customs, detachment and disassociation – the artist evokes deep seated fears, insecurities and otherness alongside hopes of freedom and relief. their work engages with kentish folk customs and landmarks, blending them with personal imagery to narrate a story of identity, belonging and the act of laying ones trauma to rest. the exhibition takes its name from the artist entreating with the viewer whilst delving on the journey of returning to nature; becoming one with the water and experiencing all earthly tethers dissolving into salt and foam.

Preview: Thursday 19th November, 5-7pm

100 under £100

For The Halpern Gallery Winter Open 2026 we are inviting artists to take part in 100 under £100.

Full details and how to submit here