New Director of Firstsite. Sally Shaw on Monday at Firstsite, East Hill Colchester.. A LOT can change in the space of a decade. Colchester’s Firstsite gallery is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a myriad of exhibitions pencilled in over the coming months. However, taking bookings has not always been as effortless as it is now. In its early years the gallery was unpopular. Costing £28million and opening two years late after a series of setbacks, the contemporary art gallery was damned by its critics. It was labelled elitist and failed to get the footfall it wanted. In 2015, Colchester Arts Centre director Anthony Roberts was parachuted in as interim director.