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This June, artist Anna Maria Nabirye will host a pop-up of Black British Kitchens: The Funnest Room in the House at Towner. In September 2025, Anna Maria created a mini residency at Towner Eastbourne to feel at home and start the journey and work of embedding the pop-up in Eastbourne.

Date: September 16 to 20, 2025
Location: Towner Eastbourne
Team: Nicky Childs, Esther Collins, Anna Maria Nabirye, Cameron Brown

Thinking ahead to The Funnest Room in the House popping up at Towner in Eastbourne in June, it felt important to get to know Eastbourne and the gallery a little more intimately. It's only a 30 minute train ride from where I live in St Leonards, and though I have been there for cultural events and to visit family, I realised I didn’t "know-it-know-it" if you know what I mean.

The Funnest Room in the House is all about the kitchen, and more specifically Black British kitchens. Through my research, and for me personally, I think it is fair to say that more often than not, these rooms were the engine room of the home. They symbolised love, care and nurturing as well as life and survival. At times when racism was overt and Black folks were openly not welcome in venues, restaurants, clubs or social spaces, kitchens were the gathering place for families, friends and ancestors - through recipes, foods and methodologies. They were close-knit places that held the choreography of many lives and many purposes. I am wanting to recreate a fraction of this feeling and experience to evoke memories in audiences and collaborators. For me, this means feeling at home in the places the work pops-up. This mini residency at Towner was a perfect way to make tangible the start of this relationship between the work, me (the artist), the gallery and the communities that surround it.  There are so many ways to make home, to get to know and to be known - but time is most important, and in our current society, it feels like the hardest thing to acquire. So these four days were bliss. Here is a snapshot of what I got up to…

DAY 1

Arrive

Building Tour

Visit Towner Collection Store

DAY 2 

Visit Black Robin Farm: Towner's new site

Review images - objects from original installation before they were destroyed

Reflect Ugandan life vs. Mill Hill life (both my homes)

Reflect on shared memories from the Whitechapel listening event

Admin 

Meeting with pop-up build lead

DAY 3

Printed images for collage exercise

Collecting furniture from around the gallery - how can I make the space soft and inviting

Brew Ugandan Tea

Launch Event with Towner staff, stakeholders, community leaders, grassroots organisers and potential partners

Collective listening of Afterword:Whitechapel

Conversations and connections

Sauna session with Esther (Head of Learning) to debrief

DAY 4

Photo session with Cameron (Communication & Marketing Co-ordinator)

Visiting the exhibitions

Working out next steps for project in Eastbourne

Find out more: Black British Kitchens: The Funnest Room in the House