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Brighton has long specialised in producing bands that sound like they were born for sticky
Brighton and Hove throws open its doors once again as Artists Open Houses celebrates its 45th year with a record-breaking 197 venues across the city.
Every May, Brighton and Hove does something no other city in the UK can quite pull off. Front rooms become galleries, garden sheds turn into studios, and total strangers invite you in for a chat about ceramics over a cup of tea. That’s Artists Open Houses (AOH), and in 2026 it’s back for its 45th year — and it’s bigger than ever.
Running across the first four weekends of May (2–4, 9–10, 16–17 and 23–25), the festival takes over 197 venues stretching from Brighton and Hove out to Rottingdean and Ditchling. The full programme has just gone live at aoh.org.uk/may2026, and if you haven’t already started colour-coding your map, now’s the time.
For the uninitiated, AOH is one of the oldest and largest festivals of its kind in the country. The premise is simple: artists open up their homes, studios and unusual spaces to the public, and you wander in. No white-cube intimidation, no velvet rope, just makers talking about their work in the spaces where they actually make it. It’s also one of the best excuses going to nose around corners of the city you’ve never ventured into before.
This year’s programme leans into the experimental as much as the traditional. Alongside painting, printmaking, textiles and craft, expect to encounter artworks made with living bacteria and DNA, inflatable sculptures that only exist for a few hours, talking ceramics that receive their own perfume spritz, and a house entirely dedicated to dog-inspired art. Yes, really.
Here’s where we’d be heading first.
Art of Pepita x Fatboy Slim brings together nine ground-breaking artists under one roof, with a visit from Norman Cook himself as Pepita Coffee launches new tin designs by contemporary artist TBOY. Keep an eye out for work from The Postman, one of Brighton’s most recognisable street artists, too.
AOH’s 2026 brochure cover comes courtesy of Alej Ez, whose Modern Bathers will be on show at his own Open House alongside new prints in the series. His classic landscapes are heading to The Old Market, and his new Dragons series will be at The Flamingo House at the Royal Pavilion.
If you only see one thing this festival, make it BioArt Transformations at the Regency Town House Basement. Internationally acclaimed artist Anna Dumitriu, a pioneer of the BioArt movement, works with living bacteria, DNA and technology to create sculptures, installations and textiles that bridge the history of medicine with synthetic biology, genomics and AI. It’s genuinely unlike anything else on the programme.
Mandeep Dillon makes her AOH debut at Harrington Road with inflatable installations exploring the transient physicality of more-than-human beings. The sculptures themselves are intentionally short-lived; photographs and moving image are the only lasting trace. Catch them while they’re up.
Sculpture at The Secret Garden is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and it’s as lovely as it sounds too. Curated by Shoreham-based sculptors Abby Martin and Teresa Martin in collaboration with Surrey Sculpture Society, it’s the perfect excuse to stretch an afternoon into a long, gently boozy early evening.
Sarah Arnett, AOH’s 2024 cover designer, returns with Sarah Arnett’s Picture Palace — a creative cacophony of spectacular art and design. Great Pottery Throwdown finalist Adam Johnson is back at Make It, 11 Rugby Road with Dan and Egg the pug in tow. And at Wild Iris Perfumerie, Boogaloo Stu’s Fragrant Follies puts a glorious, technicolour spin on ceramics — characterful vases that ooze personality, chat amongst themselves, and each get their own perfectly matched fragrance spritz.
Brighton’s only Open House entirely devoted to dog-inspired art, The DOG SHOW is hosting flash tattoo events with Eli Inking on 2nd and 3rd May — a festival first.
At Land, Sea and Sky, you’ll find a moving three-generation collaboration: paintings by Emma Christopherson, her mother Katie Christopherson, and her grandmother Sue Letts. The family began painting together regularly after Sue’s dementia diagnosis, discovering the powerful benefits of creative expression and connection. It’s one of three houses this year showcasing mothers and daughters exhibiting across two or even three generations.
Plunge Creations opens its doors for one weekend only, giving a rare look inside the world of large-scale prop making. Yes, that Masked Singer costume. Yes, those Traitors props. Go on, have a gawp.
The Imposter Club blends physical and digital art with a run of workshops in digital storytelling, doodling and game design, alongside illustration, installation, painting and printmaking.
Part of AOH’s magic is the venues themselves. This year you’ll find artworks in hayloft and village hall, iconic seafront studios, coffee roasters, a tennis club — and even a garden originally designed by Gertrude Jekyll. It’s a genuinely new route through a city most of us think we know inside out.
Every piece you buy goes directly to the maker, so it’s also one of the more meaningful ways to spend on art and craft all year.
As AOH Festival Director Judy Stevens puts it: “This year’s programme brings together an incredible mix of both new and familiar artists and makers from the city, region and further afield. The festival brings a month-long opportunity to immerse yourself in visual creativity of all kinds.”
Grab the brochure, grab a friend, and get lost in the city for a weekend. You’ll never look at your neighbour’s front room the same way again.
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