MESSUMS EAST

Opening in Spring 2025, the former Post Office building in London Road North will be refurbished and transformed into a 21st century hub for creativity and, in so doing, will maintain the heritage of this historically important building in the heart of the town.  

Working with Lowestoft Town Council and internationally renowned sculptor Laurence Edwards to see this project come to fruition, the hub, known as Messums East, will provide a working studio for a long-term revolving residency programme. This will commence with Laurence Edwards who will be creating a large-scale bronze landmark sculpture for Lowestoft, casting it at his foundry in East Suffolk. He will work extensively with the community from the new studio at the Post Office to see this realised. 

As well as placing international artists at the centre of Messums East, space will be provided for a spectrum of national and regional artists, together with exhibition spaces, a screening room and a café/ restaurant. The pyramid of regional, national and international connections will be the central architecture to the programming and the ambition of the gallery. 

In keeping with the practicality that buildings survive through adaptability, the venue will also become a platform that allows creative thinking to fill its spaces and to guide its future over time as a meeting point of minds to explore how art as a language is made, interpreted, resolved and shared. 

In a building that once received and sent out information around the world, the old Post Office will bring together all the ranges of art that are applied in creativity or methodology on paper. From ideas formulated on the back of an envelope through to sculptures, scripts and prints, paper will establish its role as a conveyer of information and ideas. 

The programme at Messums East will embrace and celebrate all art forms encompassing sculpture, dance, photography, painting, drawing, ceramics, architecture and more. We will offer a programme of talks and symposiums based on the successful implementation of this at Messums West (previously Messums Wiltshire) and these will focus on a range of topics central to the world that we live in today. It is our aim that we can use these events to bring people together, to inform our individual thinking around collective decisions and to thus help play our part in using creativity to problem-solve. Appreciation and respect for nature remains central to our agenda and our Active Environmentalism programme will continue at Messums East with a fresh focus on issues important to the region and further afield. Essential to our ethos is the enabling of opportunities. As part of this, we will continue to support and nurture artists through our Emerging Talent programme. The act of physical making will also be at the heart of our offer so visitors can enjoy experiencing the materials and processes embraced by our artists and gain in the rewards creativity can provide. 

The Post Office building has the patination of Lowestoft history and Messums East will enable the culture of creativity in this area to be celebrated by bringing an enticing range of exhibitions and events to the town and for the story of the art of the region to be told nationally and internationally. This is in keeping with the building’s original purpose as a Post Office, a place where information is received and subsequently communicated far and wide. The hub will offer a social meeting point for an exchange of ideas, and we welcome everyone to share in the journey of its formation. 

Over the coming months we will be engaging with the local community, listening and responding to ideas and conversations to share in our mutual ambition. As part of this process, we are launching the London Road Open Art Competition. 

A Window in Lowestoft 

Ahead of opening in Spring 2025, when 51 London Road will open as Messums East, creativity is already bubbling at the site of Lowestoft’s former Post Office. In keeping with our vision to be an artistic landmark point within the town and region, the windows themselves have already been reimagined as curated spaces offering a window into Lowestoft online and a window into the art world for those passing. 

The Post Office will re-awaken its earlier purpose of being a conveyer of information in and out of the town. Where once letters and packages came and went, now knowledge and information will move from artist to audience offering an insight into the programme at Messums and a way to bring international focus on artistic activity in the East Coast. 

The window exhibitions will offer a means to provide visibility into regional creativity and an insight into the art and culture that will be celebrated in the years ahead. They will provide a glimpse into our ethos and the different genre of the arts that we support. Low-key and thought provoking, the windows will be curated on a four-month rotation. 

Programme: 

Project 1: Dancing Balustrades brought to you by Messums East 

Project 2: Presentation by Laurence Edwards 

Projects 3 & 4: “On London Road” – an open call programme for a presentation of ideas in the window of the old Post Office, 51 London Road, Lowestoft, with four to be judge selected for display and others for an online show with one to be exhibited at Messums London gallery, 28 Cork Street, London. 

Further displays will be guest curated and we welcome your thoughts and ideas for the creative agenda you would like to be featured. Connecting people and places is at the heart of our agenda together with our belief in enabling creative thinkers to have a platform to share their ideas. Messums East will offer a social meeting point for an exchange of ideas, and we welcome everyone, at every stage, to share in the journey of its formation. The window displays mark the start of this journey while behind the scenes the work is progressing to see the Post Office brought back to life as a 21st century hub of creativity. 

We hope that you will share in our journey of bringing the Post Office back to life and celebrating its history and evolution. 

 ABOUT LAURENCE EDWARDS 

Born and living in Suffolk, Laurence Edwards went to school in Leiston and in the early 1980s spent happy years at Lowestoft FE college, where he also met his future wife. He employs local people at his large-scale art foundry in Halesworth where his sculptures are cast before being exhibited around the world. 
He comments, 

“My sculptural life started at Lowestoft College. Lowestoft gave me a chance, accepted and encouraged me to take the first steps of a career. Something I’ve never forgotten. I can’t quite believe that some forty years later, I have the chance to return and work within the community to create something of meaning, something of scale that will hopefully speak of this unique and special place for years to come.”