Hastings takes up artistic idioms and presentational forms of conceptual art and charges them sensually. She combines conceptual strategies with the language and aesthetics of action-related, factual texts … and stages these through the employment of a markedly material aesthetics. Her art opens up a dialogue on the origins, significance and function of ‘works’ and hands over the responsibility for the open ‘product’ of reflection and action to the viewer.
For her most recent work … [t]wo square white seats, formally referring to the classical works of Minimal Art, are positioned so that viewers see each other through the missing centre of the object. … One of the patterns is repeated in an accompanying photocopy as the fabric of a dress worn by the artist Varvara Stepanova, a protagonist of the Russian avant-garde whose textile designs, typographical sketches and spatial constructions were among the pioneering achievements of her time.