SOUTHAMPTON'S Tiniest Art Gallery is set to launch next month.

Transforming a disused noticeboard into a tiny creative space, it is set to bring six exhibitions a year to Bedford Place. 

Artists are now being invited to put their work forward for the inaugural exhibition, which will be officially opened by the Lord Mayor of Southampton, Cllr Valerie Laurent, during the Bedford Place Festival on Sunday July 2.

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S.T.A.G (Southampton's Tiniest Art Gallery), a brightly painted space which peeps out above the railings of Bedford Place car park, is part of a series of projects supported by BePoRa (Bedford Place & Polygon's Residents Association), which formed back in 2021 and is also responsible for the nearby community garden. 

Its manager and curator Nicola Anderson told the Daily Echo: "It's one of the initiatives to try to bring life into the community in different and interesting ways. 

"You can do wonderful things in the smallest of spaces! It may be tiny, but it's offering artists and creatives a way of getting their work out there and a really positive thing for the community.

"While we've been refurbing the space and painting it, we've had such positive feedback, it's been really heart-warming. 

"We hope it will draw people in. It's just about having a bit of fun and having a little bit of art where you would least expect it.

"It's made us giggle, it's a sweet idea and it's no different to having your work displayed anywhere else, just on a tiny scale. 

"We've had some great applications already and are expecting a flurry before the deadline for submission from the first open call on June 23.

"It's exciting. It may be small but it has loads of potential."

Exhibitions will run on a two-month revolving basis and are set to include drawing, painting, collage, graphic design, illustration embroidery, photography, poetry or anything experimental.

Twice a year, people from local schools, the care home and community groups will be offered the chance to submit artwork to be exhibited in the gallery, which will be chosen in the same way, by a rotating panel of residents and business owners from the area.