Events, projects and resources to encourage making together and connections between our community and the gallery.
For school bookings, please visit our School & Group Visits page
the love of fruit and the love of sharks was filmed and edited by Shepherd Manyika during a series of workshops Spring/Summer 2024 in collaboration with Banana Sharks Youth Collective at Willingdon Trees Community Centre.
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To celebrate Wriggle Room’s first birthday in May 2023, Towner invited lead artists Katy Beinart & Lydia Hunt, and the Wriggle Room participants to create a stop-motion animation.
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Listen to this panel discussion in which Emma Stibbon is joined by those at the forefront of climate action, including politician, author and end-of-life doula Caroline Lucas and climate justice advocate Samia Dumbuya.
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New Stories for the Seven Sisters & Sussex Heritage Coast
We Hear You Now (2023) is a 16 part spoken word audio series also embedded as a walking trail on Listening points across the Seven Sisters and Sussex Heritage Coast, presenting contemporary speculative fiction, poetry and new myth by writers, poets and artists of black and global heritage.
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Listen to Maria Amidu and writer and researcher Rohini Malik Okon as they discuss themes of memory, care and tenderness found within Maria’s exhibition in the perpetual back and forth and her new commission 26,778,780 minutes.
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Making that remembers…a correspondence between emotion and materials
Alongside Maria Amidu’s exhibition in the perpetual back and forth, Towner worked with iniva and A Space to produce a bespoke set of Emotional Learning Cards as part of the Future Collect project. Each of the 25 cards features an artwork or work in progress by Maria on the front with related commentary and conversational prompts on the reverse.
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Girls Twiddling Knobs founder Isobel talks with sound and lino artist, Daisy Stewart-Darling about her new project Lino Waves: Soundscapes of the Living Coast, which documents the changing East Sussex coastline through field recordings and large-scale lino works.
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by Alinah Azadeh
Towner commissioned artist and writer Alinah Azadeh to imagine and describe what visiting Black Robin Farm might be like in the future.
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Activities, stories and explorations for under-5’s and their caregivers developed by Katy Beinart and Lydia Hunt.
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July to August 2024
Artist-led Creative Exploration, Collaboration and Making at Towner supported by the Holiday Activity and Food Programme and lead by artist Sam Ayre.
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Hampden Park
Ongoing
Creative sessions developed in collaboration with Willingdon Trees to deliver monthly artist-led sessions promoting positive mental health through creativity for young people.
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214 Terminus Road
July 2024
The Elephant in the Room was a temporary installation in a vacant shop space on Terminus Road in Eastbourne. 10 artist members of the Arts in Mind group took part showing a mix of painting, collage, sculpture, animation, slides and installation.
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October 2023 - April 2024
Towner and Eastbourne ALIVE have collaborated to deliver bespoke visits to Turner Prize 2023 and artist-led workshops in schools.
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Listen to a curated playlist by artist Lothar Götz, who created the joyful public artwork Dance Diagonal on Towner's exterior, and has this year collaborated with us to publish a book about its impact across the town.
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Listen to audio descriptions about the Turner Prize Welcome Space and each of the Turner Prize exhibitions. For blind and visually impaired visitors.
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November 2022 - July 2023
Towner's partnered with artist Richard Phoenix and Nibble Bibble Duck Toes from The Turing School to develop a student resource for Turner Prize 2023!
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Listen to a curated Barbara Hepworth-inspired playlist by multidisciplinary artist Nwando Ebizie. You’ll find 18 songs by musicians and composers including Handel, Pharoah Sanders, Björk, Carpenters and Caterina Barbieri.
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In the text panels and labels for our TOWNER 100 exhibitions you will find a glossary of words that are often associated with a collection of artworks. The words help describe what a collection is, how artworks come into a collection and some of the actions used when looking after artworks.
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October 2022 to July 2023
De La Warr Pavilion (DLWP) and Towner Eastbourne are working together to programme holiday activities for families. We are collaborating to deliver an artistic programme for four artists to develop their socially engaged practice across the current academic year.
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2022-2023
Throughout 2023 Towner Eastbourne is partnering with iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) for the third and final year of Future Collect, a project that will reimagine the future of public collections to better reflect our culturally diverse society.
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15 October 2022 to 22 January 2023
Listen to frogs.picus.VANNA, a sound work by Italian sound artist Ramona Ponzini that will be availlable online for the duration of Brewers Towner International (15 October 2022 to 22 January 2023).
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Listen to a curated playlist by the artist and filmmaker Ayo Akingbade of 20 songs by musicians including Sade, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and Grace Jones, which inspired the works shown in Duette - an exhibition at Towner until 22 January 2023.
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12 September 2022
Chris Rakoczi, grandson of Benny, describes the somewhat tumultuous artistic lives of the couple, who together founded the White Stag Group, interested in “holding the conscious world in voluntary abeyance.”
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May 2022
In a half-day workshop, artist Katy Beinart and writer Lizzie Lloyd spoke through some of the issues raised within their current project Acts of Transfer. They were joined by Beverley Bennett and Benjamin A Owen, both working in engaged practice as artists and filmmakers. Together they hosted an afternoon inviting artists to experience the ‘working out’ of these questions together.
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August 2022
Forty-eight artists based in Sussex and Kent have been selected via an open call to come together over four weeks to share space, ideas and processes and support each other in generating new artworks.
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In celebration of Rita Evans’ installation Tuning in a Vacuum Towner has rereleased our at-home learning resource. The activity sheet was originally designed with Rita in October 2020.
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Shinewater and Langney
July to August 2022
Supported by the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) project, Towner has partnered with GROW Eastbourne to provide creative artist-led activities around nature, food and community connection for children and young people on Free School Meals.
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Ongoing, term-time only
Collaborative, creative sessions every Tuesday during term time, working with Willingdon Trees Community Centre and Towner to develop activities for Early Years groups and their carers across Eastbourne.
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26 April 2022
Watch artists Jananne Al-Ani and Michael Rakowitz in discussion with the writer and arts organiser Rijin Sahakian in a conversation exploring the transnational threads linking their work and past and present Iraqi art and culture.
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Next Chapters by Chris Fite-Wassilak
Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grantee Chris Fite-Wassilak writes on the unseen and the unwritten, considering how this spring might be different to the last.
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4 March 2022
On this week's episode, Renee and private collectors John and David discuss pieces by John Minton and Kathleen Walne.
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18 February 2022
On this week's episode, Renee and Flo Wright discuss pieces by John Minton and Paul Graham.
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4 February 2022
On this week's episode, Renee and Emily Love return to Three Graces by Phelan Gibb as well as taking a look at Portrait of Constant Lambert by Christopher Wood.
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Staging Gestures by Melissa Gordon
Melissa Gordon writes on the meaning of the gesture and the inspiration behind her work in this extract from the upcoming book 'Acts of Painting'
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21 January 2022
On this week's episode, Renee and Andrea Mindel explore Figure on an Orange Background by Brett Whiteley and we return again to Margaret Benecke's mysterious Interior with Figure.
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7 January 2022
On this week's episode, Renee and Harry/Harriet explore works by Phelan Gibb and the little-known, Eastbourne-based artist, Margaret Benecke.
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24 December 2021
This episode, a conversation between Renee and technician Eva Jonas, exploring works by Victor Pasmore and Keith Vaughan.
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10 December 2021
In this episode, Renee talks to Vicky Norman, a language teacher, about Wilfrid Avery's Counterpoint, 1976 and Tom Hammick's Swimmer, 2016.
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26 November 2021
In this first episode, Renee explores the Towner Collection, talks to curators Karen Taylor and Sara Cooper about how the Collection came to be, and deep dives into three paintings that really captured her attention during the Collectively sessions.
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New episodes every two weeks from 26 November 2021
Over Summer 2021, Towner Eastbourne invited members of the LGBTQIA+ community in East Sussex to take part in a unique creative project, exploring personal responses to artworks in the Towner Collection, through a queer lens.
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May to November 2021
Running in parallel to England’s Creative Coast’s Waterfronts commission for Eastbourne, an accompanying community programme spanning digital, offsite and open-air deliveries, was led by artist Amy Leung.
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Following the success of Making Sense – our most recent series of creative kit bags, produced in partnership with the South Downs National Park and inspired by nature, seasonal cycles, and natural materials, we’ve commissioned artist Somang Lee to continue the fun and produce two special Summer & Autumn editions of these activity sheets.
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Following the success of Making Sense – our most recent series of creative kit bags, produced in partnership with the South Downs National Park and inspired by nature, seasonal cycles, and natural materials, we’ve commissioned artist Somang Lee to continue the fun and produce two special Summer & Autumn editions of these activity sheets.
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With a mix of skill, experience, humour, and critique, Scottee and Le Gateau Chocolat reflect on their respective routes into theatre and performance, what they love about the industry, and how to sustain creative, personal, and financial resilience within the crisis that performing artists currently face.
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Amanda Parker (Founder and Director of Inc Arts UK) and Jenny Williams (Director of Revoluton and Towner Trustee) explore the challenges and opportunities in creating a more inclusive and diverse creative arts sector.
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Spring 2021
Sense Your Way is a guide for experimental art practice for young people. It is designed to be printed at A4 and can be downloaded and printed in either black and white or colour. There are two resources for teachers with more information about the project and how to use them in school.
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In this exploratory online talk particularly for those in the Creative Industries or looking to enter this field of study or work, Michael Wolff, founder of Wolff Olins, and Joe Hill, Towner Director, discuss the idea of ‘being’ in the contemporary moment.
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In response to COVID-19, Towner partnered with the South Downs National Park on an exciting project that continues the success of our creative kit bags with a new series inspired by our local landscape.
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In this reflective online talk, Helen Cammock and Tai Shani discuss their experiences as visual artists, including developing and maintaining their practice in the current climate and activating collaborations with and supporting peer networks.
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Autumn 2020
As part of the Saving Berwick project in 2021, Arts in Mind made artwork in response to the murals, interior and landscape surrounding Berwick Church. Arts in Mind meet weekly at Towner Eastbourne and make artwork alongside each other in a studio setting to support positive mental health.
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In response to COVID-19, Towner partnered with the South Downs National Park on an exciting project that continues the success of our creative kit bags with a new series inspired by our local landscape.
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2020-2021
During the national lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, Eastbourne Borough Council, Eastbourne Food Bank and Community Stuff provided a lifeline to vulnerable households, ensuring that help was delivered to those most in need.
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Ongoing
Arts in Mind meet weekly at the gallery. They make artwork in a supported studio setting, and nurture positive mental health. The group have been meeting and making since 2009 and are currently facilitated by Ella Hempsted and Michaela Ross. During sessions members work alongside each other on their own projects, and also experiment with making work together.
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