SNAP was launched in June 2011 as part of the Aldeburgh Festival’s visual arts programme. Based at the home of Aldeburgh Music at Snape Maltings on the Suffolk coast, SNAP presents leading international artists alongside some lesser-known emerging talents, many with connections to the area.

Two artists who now live and work in Suffolk, Abigail Lane and Sarah Lucas, have been instrumental to the initiation of SNAP, and in assembling the artists involved. Sadie Coles, part-time resident in the area, was also integral to the project’s instigation. The shows are developed and coordinated by Abigail Lane in association with Aldeburgh Music.

SNAP 2013 will celebrate the centenary of Benjamin Britten, co founder of the Aldeburgh Festival. Contemporary artists from both the SNAP 2011* and SNAP 2012* exhibitions have been invited to produce and contribute new works that are related to or inspired by Britten’s legacy. We are also very pleased to include several others who have not shown with us before. SNAP 2013 will include works by Darren Almond, Glenn Brown, May Cornet, Cerith Wyn Evans, Mark Fuller, Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Scott King, Emily Richardson, Abigail Lane, Simon Liddiment, Sarah Lucas, Julian Simmons, Cally Spooner and Juergen Teller.

As in previous years, the artists will penetrate the fabric of the festival’s home by colonizing both the derelict and developed, indoor and outdoor spaces at Snape Maltings. The result is an opportunity to see art outside a conventional gallery setting and in a vigorous site specific way. SNAP 2013 promises to be a show as lively as previous exhibitions and will again incorporate performance, painting, print, installation, sculpture and sound. The works will sit alongside permanent or long term sculptures outdoors at Snape including Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, Henry Moore's Large Interior Form, Alison Wilding’s Migrant and Sarah Lucas’s Perceval.

SNAP develops the existing visual arts programme that has been present since the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. In the past this programme has included a wide range of artists, mostly rooted in the area or linked to the music for which the festival is best known including, amongst many others, John Constable, Sydney Nolan, John Piper and Howard Hodgkin.

I am delighted that SNAP is developing the visual art traditions of the Aldeburgh Festival, presenting work that sits alongside the contemporary music programme for which Aldeburgh is justly world-renowned.

Jonathan Reekie
Chief Executive, Aldeburgh Music

*SNAP 2011 included works by Darren Almond, Don Brown, Cerith Wyn Evans, Mark Fuller, Russell Haswell, Gary Hume, Johnnie Shand Kydd, Abigail Lane, Simon Liddiment, Sarah Lucas, Julian Simmons and Juergen Teller..

*SNAP 2012 included works by Glenn Brown, May Cornet, Matthew Darbyshire with Scott King, Brian Eno, Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Mark Limbrick, Gavin Turk and Emily Richardson.