Large black and white portraits of well-known people from the community will adorn the Margate structure for a month

A project by globally renowned artist JR has become the first installation on the new Stretch art box at Newgate Gap shelter in Margate.

The temporary outdoor structure, created by arts charity Stretch, will be used to display poster art over the next two years.

And the first installation is by none other than French artist JR, whose Inside Out project has become a world-wide platform using large-scale black and white posters of members of the community in public spaces.

It is celebrated as a ‘people’s art project’ launched to let people express themselves and make a statement for what they stand for.

The posters at Stretch art box include the faces of potter and ceramic designer Keith Brymer Jones, legendary DJ Dean Thatcher, MOBO award-winning musician Pat Have Mercy, local poets Suzanne French and Douglas Sansby, local DJ Bernadette Hawkes, writer Melissa Todd and gallery owners Rebekha Sunshine and Anthony Wait.

Dean Stalham, curator of the Stretch Outsider Art Gallery (@stretchoutsiderart), says the majority of the posters are of local artists and artisans who support Stretch.

The charity engages through art projects with vulnerable members of society such as ex-convicts, homeless people and those in care.

The art box is booked up for the next six months, with upcoming installations by Margate artist Charlie Everisto-Boyce with an ‘Amazing box’ and a ‘Love box’ by the new Love Cafe in Margate among others.

Each will run for a month.

The current Inside Out project involved photographs being taken in Thanet with the posters then created in New York and sent back to Kent.

Mr Stalham says it is already proving popular with lots of positive feedback and that it’s created a focal point.

People also have the chance to have their own picture made up to take home, costing just £10.

“We have the background up on the art box so if anyone wants a giant poster, they just need to take a high res selfie in front of the background and I can then get them a poster,” Mr Stalham said.

Stretch, which took over Newgate Gap from Thanet District Council in 2020, has a longer term plan for the site.

A draft planning document, put together by Pup Architects, shows plans for a ‘new national museum for outsider art’.

“Through arts projects, Stretch engages with vulnerable members of society such as ex-convicts, homeless and those in care.

“It is from this basis that the museum as a space to celebrate, produce and exhibit outsider art was conceived.”