Cruising the Collection
16 July to 4 December 2022
Photo by Rosie Powell.
Recently, 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. Working with artist Renee Vaughan Sutherland, participants came together in a series of group sessions to view and discuss a selection of artworks chosen by Renee, by artists such as Frances Hodgkins, Phelan Gibb, Patricia Preece and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Exploring successive themes of the body, the body in landscape and queer narratives in the Collection, the group shared the thoughts, associations and connections that each of these artworks inspired. The resulting conversations form Collectively, a series of eight podcast episodes that open up the Towner Collection for others, through memories, emotions and experiences of queerness.
Following the success of the podcasts, the Collectively team further delved into the Towner Collection, curating an exhibition that will take place this summer. Expect to see a range of works selected by the group, including pieces by Wilfred Avery, Paul Graham, Kathleen Walne, and Margaret Benecke.
You can listen to the podcast! Search for 'Towner Collectively' on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you like to tune in and find a series of essays about the project on ArtUK, written by Renee.
Edward Burra, Soldiers' Backs, 1942. Copyright Estate of the Artist, c/o Lefevre Fine Art Ltd, London. Towner Eastbourne.
Wilma Johnson, Neo Naturist: Christine Binnie body-painted at St. Martin's School of Art 1980, printed 2007. ©Wilma Johnson. Towner Eastbourne.
Kathleen Walne, Reclining Boy, 1935. ©The Artist's Estate. Towner Eastbourne.
John Minton, Soldiers in Barracks, 1953. © the Artist’s Estate. All Rights Reserved 2022/ Bridgeman Art Library. Towner Eastbourne.
