Margate’s new gallery stands where JMW Turner, Britain’s greatest painter, created his epic seascapes. Lesley Bellew looks ahead to this weekend’s long-awaited opening.

Internationally renowned artist Tracey Emin returns to her Margate roots this weekend, to officially open the Turner Contemporary Gallery at the harbour.

Joining her at the seafront ceremony at 10am on Saturday, April 16, will be musician Jools Holland, who is a deputy lieutenant of Kent, as well as pupils from Holy Trinity and St John’s School in Margate.

Up to 5,000 visitors and guests are expected to celebrate the opening of the iconic building which is the county’s flagship gallery.

To coincide with the opening a 10-day programme of free events in the gallery and around the old town run from Saturday, April 16 to Easter Monday.

Music, dance, live performance and art, from specially commissioned art works to choreographed performances, will be brought together to establish Margate as the home of Turner Contemporary.

The events run in tandem with the inaugural exhibition, Revealed: Turner Contemporary Opens which runs until Sunday, September 4.

The exhibition will feature six major international contemporary artists and is centred on JMW Turner’s little-known and lengthily entitled painting The Eruption of the Soufriere Mountains in the Island of St Vincent (at Midnight, on the April 30, 1812, from a Sketch Taken at the Time by Hugh P Keane, Esq, 1815), pictured, depicting a dramatic volcanic eruption that Turner didn’t see.

New commissions by Kent-born Ellen Harvey, Daniel Buren, Russell Crotty and Conrad Shawcross will be shown alongside selected works by Teresita Fernández and Douglas Gordon.

You Are Here artists include Nicole Mollett, Christian Nold, Assume Vivid Astrofocus, Sarah Spencer, Tracey Falcon and Sophie Herxheimer. There will be performances by Cocos Lovers, Portico Quartet, Samba Pelo Mar and Kent Youth Band plus a choral performance by The Big Sing choir composed by Orlando Gough.

Graphic designers Abake – made up of Patrick Lacey, Kajsa Stahl, Benjamin Reichen and Maki Suzuki – will be working with residents to create a memory map of Margate in a 1950s caravan on the stone pier at their exhibition Why Disneyland Is Not In Margate.

Theatre Royal Margate, Strange Works and local designer HKD are also working with Turner Contemporary to celebrate Turner’s, St George’s and Shakespeare’s birthdays on Saturday, April 23, with a birthday party for the whole town.

For a full list of what is going on during the opening weekend, click here.

Exhibitions at the Turner

Revealed: Turner Contemporary Opens - April 16 to September 4

The exhibition will feature six major international contemporary artists and is centred on JMW Turner's The Eruption of the Soufriere Mountains in the Island of St Vincent.

Nothing in the World but Youth - September 17 to January 8, 2012

Inspired by Margate, associated in collective memory with theme parks, beauty contests and clashes between Mods and Rockers in the 1960s, this exhibition will reflect on what it means to be a teenager, both now and in the past. It explores how youth experience has been reflected in art, culture and the media since the late 19th century, when adolescence emerged in cultural consciousness as a distinct phase of life, to the present day.

Hamish Fulton: Walk - January 16, 2012 to May 6, 2012

Hamish Fulton’s first one-person show in the UK since 2002, will include new work made as the result of the group walks in Kent that Turner Contemporary commissioned in the lead up to the opening of the gallery.

Turner and the Elements - January 28, 2012 to May 13, 2012

The first major show of Turner works explores the role the depiction of the elements played in Turner’s landscape watercolours and late paintings, in particular his fascination with capturing the elements in combination.