AFTER much planning, masses of research and curating of artwork, the opening of the Peculiar People exhibition will have finally arrived tomorrow night.

Peculiar People is the first in a series of exhibitions, festivals and events to feature in a county-wide project called Radical Essex, which will run through this year and next.

The project intends to celebrate Essex's history as a county where utopia was imagined, traditional ways of living were challenged and revolutionary politics, art, architecture and literature were born.

Peculiar People takes its title from one of the alternative communities focused upon in the exhibition, a colony founded in 1838 in Rochford, who rejected modern medicine and instead chose faith healing.

It takes place at the Focal Point Gallery, Elmer Square, at 7pm.

Admission is free.