Rebel Gallery

The Rebel Gallery sits just outside Hastings and pulls no punches about what it's here to do - showcase work that challenges, provokes, and refuses to play it safe. It's contemporary art with attitude, the sort of place where you'll either walk out thinking you've just seen something brilliant or completely perplexed, sometimes both in the same afternoon.

The space itself is refreshingly unpretentious. No velvet ropes or hushed tones, just art that wants to be looked at and argued about. Their roster swings between emerging local artists and established names doing something experimental - installations, sculpture, painting, video work, the lot. It's the kind of gallery that makes you stand in front of something for ten minutes trying to work out whether you love it or hate it.

Visitors who thrive here tend to be the curious sort - art students, creative types, anyone bored stiff by traditional galleries. If you're after something contemplative and conversation-starting rather than safe and decorative, it's worth your time. Families with young kids might find it a bit thin on the ground unless your offspring are already into contemporary work, but teenagers with opinions will probably dig it.

Allow 45 minutes to an hour, longer if something really grabs you. Combined with a stay at Coghurst Hall Holiday Park just up the road, you've got a proper cultural break without the pretence. It's Hastings doing what it does best - being slightly different.