Turner Prize "bounce" is all good for Eastbourne

SussexWorld

Towner Eastbourne and the town as a whole are still enjoying the knock-on effects of hosting the Turner Prize over the winter.

Transcript

00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always lovely

00:06 to speak to you. Joe Hill at Town at Eastbourne, where it's exciting times, isn't it? You've

00:11 got a fantastic summer ahead, some really interesting, challenging exhibitions. But

00:16 the point is, this is all capitalising on all that you've gained and all that you've

00:20 experienced through the Turner Prize, isn't it?

00:22 Absolutely, yeah. It was sad to say goodbye to the Turner Prize exhibition. It was hugely

00:28 popular. We welcomed over 130,000 people through the door to see it, as well as all

00:33 the people that came to Eastbourne and enjoyed Eastbourne through the winter months.

00:38 For a record year.

00:40 Yeah, and the profile that the Gallery has gained through doing that project is enormous.

00:45 We've brought new audiences on board. And the idea is we want to carry on with that

00:49 ambition, build on the profile.

00:50 There must have been pressure with the Turner Prize, because fabulous opportunity, and that's

00:56 only half the story, isn't it? You've got to do something with that opportunity. But

00:59 the point is, you clearly have, haven't you?

01:02 Yeah, it's a huge amount of pressure on the team to deliver something of national and

01:06 international importance like that. And yeah, the team did a brilliant job. I think, you

01:11 know, Tate were delighted with how it went. And everybody is feeling positive after it.

01:17 Has it changed perceptions about Eastbourne? Changed perceptions about the Gallery? What

01:20 do you think?

01:21 I hope so. We're just evaluating it at the moment. And there are some really interesting

01:24 sort of visitor feedback coming back about what they thought about Eastbourne before,

01:29 what they think about it now. So I think it has made a big sort of dink in how people

01:33 feel about Eastbourne.

01:34 What do you think has changed?

01:37 I think they see it as a vibrant cultural space now. It's a place to come and see really

01:41 great art and exhibitions. I think they've been introduced to the fabulous landscape

01:45 here as well. A lot of people hadn't visited Eastbourne before, and hopefully they'll be

01:49 back to see what we've got to show, but also to enjoy the town and the surrounding landscape.

01:54 So I think people have been genuinely surprised. They had a perception it was a sort of maybe

01:59 a retirement town, a seaside town, but actually saw it was quite diverse, younger profile.

02:04 There's lots of exciting things going on here, shops, food, that sort of thing. So the knock-on

02:10 effects from Turner Prize, I think we'll see certainly over the next few years. And as

02:15 we build up towards opening a new site for the Gallery up at Black Robin Farm, you know,

02:20 there's another opportunity there for us to really cement Eastbourne as one of the most

02:24 important cultural towns, certainly on the South Coast.

02:27 Fantastic. And more immediately, this is momentum that you're taking into the exhibitions this

02:32 summer and the most notable one is the Emma Stibbon, isn't it?

02:37 Absolutely, yeah. We wanted to sort of come out of the Turner Prize with a really strong

02:40 summer programme. So we've got three women artists showing some fabulous new work that

02:45 they've made. Emma Stibbon in our main gallery is on the top floor. She's got an exhibition

02:49 called Melting Ice, Rising Tides, which is, she's a really interesting artist that works

02:55 closely with scientists, climate scientists, goes on research trips to Antarctica and the

03:00 Arctic, and she makes drawings and print work based on the changing landscape of the Arctic.

03:06 And what she's done in this exhibition is sort of link those changing landscapes in

03:12 those quite remote areas that sort of human beings aren't in, to the cliffs of the Seven

03:18 Sisters, which obviously adjacent to Eastbourne, and the changing landscape of the cliffs.

03:23 So you've got this sort of juxtaposition of these two that are crashing together, of how

03:27 that is affecting the cliffs here directly. So people can see a direct correlation between

03:32 what's happening in those spaces that's impacting the landscape here. And obviously, as we know,

03:37 that's due to rising climates and our impact as humans on the world. Part of that exhibition

03:43 is obviously a whole body of new work that she's made around the Seven Sisters cliffs,

03:47 shown alongside brilliant iceberg drawings and wonderful films and lens camera work as

03:56 well. But she's quite dramatically, the first thing you will see is a recreation of a cliff

04:00 drop as you walk into the gallery. So five metre high drawing of the cliff face and then

04:07 a sort of installation of rocks as if they've just tumbled in front of you. So you are affronted

04:12 as you walk in with this quite dramatic scene that makes you think about our scale. It makes

04:19 you feel really small with these giant boulders. But yes, that's Emma's show. It's really exciting

04:26 to have it.

04:27 It's the perfect provocative way to get into the summer. Well, congratulations on all the

04:30 Turner success and wishing you all the best for a happy successful summer. Thank you very

04:35 much indeed. Good to speak to you.

04:36 [ Silence ]

Category

Transcript

Recommended