Verity-Jane Keefe The Findings
Shinewater and Langney, Eastbourne
A broken brick, a lump of earth, mud between your fingers, clay squeezed. Could be something, could be nothing. Rubbish, treasure, now, then. A little deeper, brushed, cleaned, sorted, found. A piece of pottery in my hand, about 3500 years old. Time is wild. Value. The same hands holding the same objects thousands of years apart.
Since Autumn 2023 Verity-Jane Keefe has been developing a series of public artworks in Langney and Shinewater through engagement activities and workshops. Using the bronze age history of the area as a starting point, Verity invited participants to explore idea of history as NOW, contemporary archaeology and the public realm.
The project began with two archaeological digs led by Jo Seaman in locations in Shinewater (outside the Sports Centre) and Langney (in the park behind the shopping centre). Members of the public and passers-by were invited to join in uncovering, sifting and identifying objects in the earth. These objects were then classified by Jo and an Archaeological Report was produced with Verity’s illustrations which is publicly available.
In the next phase Verity visited Eastbourne Household Waste Recycling Site and selected objects waiting to be recycled thrown out from households in Shinewater. As evidence of human activity, and potential archaeological finds of the future, these objects were seen as equally important as the objects found in the digs, and used for making activities in the same way.
From October 2023 The Findings was based in a shop unit within Langney Shopping Centre, which is the central point geographically and socially within the area. Over the 7 months of being in the shop Verity has welcomed Year 3 students from Shinewater Primary School as well as passers-by, shoppers, local residents and enthusiasts. Through invited workshops and drop-in activities participants have made moulds and casts of objects, used objects to make clay tiles, and made frames for the tiles. All these activities replicate processes in the development of the final public art works Verity is producing.
A small selection of the archaeological finds and objects for recycling have been cast in brass by Eastbourne-based foundry Collier Webb. Verity has photographed these objects in the hands of participants in the project – from school children to household waste site staff and shopping centre security guards – and these images will be incorporated into final designs of the permanent artworks.
Through thinking about fragments and ruins, we are asked to consider which ‘age’ we are we living in now, what ‘public’ art is and how do we make it via participatory processes.
The Findings is a new project by Verity-Jane Keefe, commissioned by Towner Eastbourne and funded by the UK Government.
All images ©Verity-Jane Keefe
About Verity-Jane Keefe
Verity-Jane Keefe is a visual artist working predominantly in the public realm to explore the complex relationship between people and place. She is interested in the role and potential of the artist within urban regeneration and how experiential practice can touch upon and raise ambitions of existing and invisible communities. She is currently working on commissions in London, Birmingham (UK) and Detroit (US) and is artist in residence for St Barts Hospital over 2023 for it's 900th anniversary year.
