Making Rituals: Amanprit Sandhu in conversation with May Hands and Hannah Lees

Working collaboratively, artists May Hands and Hannah Lees explore site-specific working and their ongoing mutual curiosity of ritual, death and rebirth. Together they are researching further rituals that happen during the wheel of the year to create a multifaceted installation of textiles, sculpture, and various natural ephemera. 

Hannah and May were in-residence at Devonshire Collective's VOLT Gallery on Seaside Road from 26 to 29 September 2024. This event comes during a second residency in Eastbourne in May 2025, and takes place surrounded by an installation of works created during the residency. They will talk about their practice in sculpture and textiles, their relationship to natural materials and the landscape, seasonal cycles, traditions, social celebrations and rituals in connection with the more-than-human world.

This event will last 45 minutes with 15 minutes for questions at the end.

We have a budget available to make this event as accessible as possible – this can include further interpretation services or other access arrangements we can meet to enable you to participate. If you require access arrangements, please email programme@townereastbourne.org.uk two weeks before the event date so that we can book a service if needed.

Hannah Lees (b. 1983, Kent, UK. Lives and works in Margate, UK) investigates ideas of cycles, constancy and mortality; the sense that things come to an end and the potential for new beginnings. This constancy, be it in religion, science, history or in organic matter, is visible in her practice through her attempts to make sense of and recognise traces of life. Traditional processes, materials and rituals are often reworked to explore how ideas and beliefs can live, die and be reborn across times and Cultures.

May Hands (b.1990, Brighton, UK. Lives and works in Folkestone, UK) explores how our relationship with materiality shapes our understanding of the world. She documents and collects observations of the world around her through traditional craft-based techniques and the collecting and reinterpreting of objects. Reflecting upon seasonal cycles, sensuality and the inherently curated aspect of our everyday consumptions, her work questions how society constructs and articulates value and desire.

Amanprit Sandhu is a curator and educator living in East Sussex. She is a Senior Lecturer on the BA Fine Art programme at Chelsea College of Arts. She has an abiding interest in how residencies afford and support new ways of working, thinking, and being for artists, cultural workers and organisations alike. Previous roles include working as the Residencies and Public Programme Curator at Camden Art Centre in London and Curator at Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire. Most recently she was curator in residence at UAL's Chelsea Space, London where she presented the work of composer, musician and artist Raven Chacon, inviting Chacon to be in residence himself at the end of her time there.

This is the inaugural project in a new series Making Sites; artist-led residencies hosted between Devonshire Collective and Towner Eastbourne. The series invites creative practitioners to engage with local materials, stories and the landscape, fostering collaboration between artists, organisations and the public. 

Designed and facilitated by Esther Collins (Head of Learning, Towner) and Polly Wright (Curator, Devonshire Collective), Making Sites is shaped with participating practitioners and supports artists to respond to Eastbourne and its surrounding areas, inviting projects to develop over time, through multiple visits and seasonal returns.