Rifted Shores: Drawing in Response to Sussex Poetry

£60 (General)

£30 (Concessions: Full time Students, 18 - 25, Disability PIP/Universal Credit, Pension Credit)

In this day course, learn about the art and literature of Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters as you develop visual responses to Charlotte Smith’s nineteenth century poem.

A drawing workshop will be led by Catherine Anyango Grünewald, an internationally exhibited artist who has created adaptions of literary texts, translated into multiple languages. Sussex Modernism curator Dr Hope Wolf and literature professor Dr Andrea Haslanger will provide insight into the poem and its connection to the exhibition Sussex Modernism.

We will remain mindful of the sensitivities of the site throughout. Smith’s poem offers new ways of thinking about it, showing how this storied location can be a point from which we can reflect on our connections with the wider world.

All materials will be provided, but you are welcome to bring your own sketchbooks or drawing materials if you wish.

This event has been supported by the School of Media Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex and by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Acceleration Account.

10.00am Introduction from Towner

10.10am Dr Hope Wolf, introduction to the art and literature of Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters

10.30am 15 minute break

10.45am Andrea Haslanger, introduction to Charlotte Smith’s poem Beachy Head

11.05am Introduction to Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s practice, using pencil drawing to evoke the contemporary resonances of historical texts.

11.10am 20 minute break

11.30am Catherine Anyango Grünewald starts the workshop

12.30pm 1 hour lunch break

1.30pm Workshop continues

3.30pm Group discussion of the drawings that have been created

4.00pm FINISH

Charlotte Smith’s remarkable poem Beachy Head (1807) describes the titular chalk cliff as a densely layered site of memory and history. It depicts the Sussex coast as a place of refuge and care, challenges imperialism, nationalism and isolationism and links to current thinking about the environment.

Catherine Anyango Grünewald is an artist and teacher. She is currently working on a graphic adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking. In 2019 she received the Navigator Art on Paper Prize, the largest award for work on paper in the world.

Andrea Haslanger is an Associate Professor in Eighteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sussex. She is currently writing a book titled Impossible Peace: Imagining Life After War in the Long Eighteenth Century.

Hope Wolf is an Associate Professor in Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Sussex. She is curator of the Towner exhibition Sussex Modernism, and author of a book of the same name published by Yale University Press in April 2025.

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.