The Four Directions:

To the North, To the South, To the East, To the West

Sited at the compass points around the Warren Hill Dew Pond, four new benches provide a welcome location for gathering, rest and reflection for people of all ages and abilities, allowing appreciation of the surrounding landscape and views across Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay to the East and Beachy Head and the sea to the South. 

The bespoke 2.5 meter benches were designed, constructed, and carved by East Sussex sculptor Will Spankie at his workshop near Ditchling using green oak sourced from the Balcombe Estate sawmill in West Sussex. Each seat has been inscribed with a text written by artist and writer Alinah Azadeh - entitled ‘To the North’, ‘To the South’, ‘To the East’ and ‘To the West’; the four reflective texts referencing the views from each of the benches. You can also listen to a reading of these texts by Alinah Azadeh and view a transcript at the bottom of this page.

As well as offering breath-taking views and a variety of habitats and ecologies to explore and learn about, there is significant history and landscape archaeology of interest around the area of the dew pond, with evidence of human activity dating back to the Stone Age 

Located immediately next to a nature-rich Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), where a number of footpaths, including the South Downs Way, converge, Warren Hill Dew Pond is a popular place with local residents, walkers and cyclists. The new benches, on a site easily accessible by foot, bike or mobility vehicle, will enable everyone to enjoy the area and its breathtaking views, and feel the wellbeing benefits that access to the landscape can offer.  

Close to Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters the site is uniquely and safely placed to serve as a site of reflection, remembrance and communal gathering for those who have lost loved ones to suicide at the nearby cliffs. The benches form part of an initiative by those involved in suicide prevention to reframe the area with more positive associations, providing an alternative site for reflection away from the cliffs themselves. 

The project has been delivered by Towner as part of its ongoing commissioning programme of public realm artworks for Eastbourne, in collaboration with the Eastbourne Downland Group. It has been generously supported by East Sussex County Council Public Health and the South Downs National Park Authority.  

Alinah Azadeh is a writer, artist, performer and cultural activist of British Iranian heritage. She uses text, audio, and live practices to create poetic narratives that activate spaces, amplifying untold or overlooked stories. As well as commissions for major museums and galleries over the last 30 years, Azadeh has had stories, poetry and articles published, most recently in Glimpse, the first anthology of speculative fiction by Black British writers, published by Peepal Tree Press, edited by Leone Ross.   

She was the inaugural writer-in-residence at Seven Sisters Country Park / Sussex Heritage Coast, commissioned by the South Downs National Park Authority, and led the We See You Now (2019–22), a decolonial landscape and literature programme which has produced We Hear You Now, a new body of work for audio tour across the landscape from June 2023–2028. Both are funded by Arts Council England. Alinah also presents for broadcast and has a podcast The Colour of Chalk.  

Will Spankie undertakes public and private commissions for sculpture, garden ornament, seating and lettering; he also carves house signs, commemorative plaques and memorials. Will sees himself in the tradition of artist makers, carving original pieces either to commission or for exhibition.  

The ideas behind Will’s sculptural work are often influenced by organic forms, material and the environment. He is interested in the geometric structures, patterns, symmetry and proportion found both in nature and the unfolding of numbers in space. Other pieces have an historical element to them, either on a personal level or as part of the commissioning process with the client.  

He works predominantly in stone and wood because they are durable, lovely to carve and have their own innate beauty. He also teaches stone carving and letter cutting courses on a private basis, in schools, prisons and through local adult education colleges.  

Eastbourne Downland Group is a membership association for all who are passionate about the Eastbourne downlands, dedicated to supporting the residents of Eastbourne in looking after its 4,174 acre downland estate, a third of the area of the town, for the benefit of the public, local farmers, wildlife and the environment, and to support the identity of the town and its superb downland location. 

www.eastbournedownlandgroup.org 

To the North. To air. To cloud drift, skylark, breezing wind. To our lungs, where grief gathers, then releases. To finding voice, courage. From cream blush of hawthorn flower to ice blue of melting glacier in Arctic Circle. To the guiding embrace of the Seven Sisters, above and below. To that light and dust we all become.    

To the East. To water. To our skin, freshly bathed in sea and spring, reborn. From Holywell, to foaming lips of sea, across Europe, onto Pacific ocean. From island to shifting island. To ebb and flow of all those on the move – human, bird, seed. To welcome, rooting of self, renature of coast. To our sublime, wild, formless ocean mother. To our gaze reflected in mist, cloud, dewpond.  

To the South. To fire. To crimson warmth of birth, of sun. To rising heat of seas transforming this coast, chalk dissolving into tidal sweep. From Falling Sands to Gulf of Guinea, to Accra. From smouldering imprints of Empire to ashes cast into sea, homing. To those we love, lose, long for, in moments of stillness on far horizons.   

To the West. To earth and chalk. To wayfinding across this realm of forking paths. To deep time, our ancestors and descendants, extinct and returning species. To those lost in conflict, named and unnamed. To the young rising, re-imagining, shaping changes to come, forming new worlds. To all our rememberings, regrets, hopes, joys and dreaming. To this present moment.  

Alinah Azadeh 

www.alinahazadeh.com 

© Alinah Azadeh.

Head to the Towner Blog to read The Four Directions: Setting the scene, another piece by Alinah Azadeh contextualising this work