Author: Max Mowbray

Our summer exhibitions, Minoru Nomata: Windscape, RESOLVE COLLECTIVE: LIDO and Helen Cann’s mural A Map of the Sea and the De La Warr Pavilion, have come to a close!

We hope you’ve enjoyed visiting these three exhibition over the past few months. If you have visited any of these exhibitions, we would be grateful if you could complete a short feedback survey, which you can access here.

If you complete the survey, you can enter our prize draw to win a Minuro Nomata Limited Edition Exhibition Postcard set. Two copies are up for grabs!

Your answers will help us plan future programmes and understand what our audiences think. The results of are fed into a platform called Audience Finder. Audience Finder is used by cultural venues across the country to help map visitor numbers and trends – all data is anonymous.

Please click here to complete the survey. Thank you!

 

Once you have completed the survey, you can enter our prize draw!

Please click here to send us you name and email address for the chance to win one of two Minuro Nomata Limited Edition Exhibition Postcard sets.

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The Prize Draw is administered by the De La Warr Pavilion. Prize draw winners will be picked on 3 October 2022 and will be contacted by the De La Warr Pavilion directly shortly after. Prizes are non-transferrable. One entry per person. Prize winners will be informed by email. You will be required to respond to receive your prize. Prizes can be collected from the De La Warr Pavilion Box Office or issued by post.

 

Congratulations to Lizzie Wells, who is the artist of the work selected for the De La Warr Pavilion Choice as part of the Bexhill Artists’ Workspace Exhibition in our Studio this weekend.

Coastal Erosion was selected by our Head of Exhibitions, Joseph Constable, who said:

“I thought this piece was very striking, both for the strong sense of movement and texture that the artist has created, but also for the salient message around climate change that is cleverly denoted by the format of the work. It reminded me of the research and conversations around coastal erosion in our littoral context that has been explored by RESOLVE Collective as part of their exhibition with young people at DLWP this summer”.

Lizzie has received a free DLWP Membership for a year.

The Bexhill Artists’ Workspace Annual Exhibition takes place in the DLWP Studio this weekend, Saturday – Monday 10am – 5pm. FREE, but all works are for sale.

“Flint is one of the materials featured in the LIDO exhibition and the use of pre-historic methods of flint knapping. I wanted to write a ‘foraging’ kind of poem about this important, ancient stone.”

 

Strike the flint, create a spark,

a glint of golden light from dark.

Hold the flame to give it life,

let amber, gold and red ignite.

 

The fire grows, uncurls and breathes.

a living creature in the breeze.

Twisting, leaping flames dance on,

man found a way to make the sun.

 

Our ancestors smiled, they gathered round,

to sit upon the wild ground.

Meat was cooked and stories shared,

the fire would listen as it flared.

 

A sacred source of heat and light,

a comfort through a bitter night.

Wild creatures feared this dazzling glow,

retreating back to forest homes.

 

A burning secret, a hidden blaze,

locked inside a crystal glaze.

A fire encased in a stone cold shell,

we learned to break this hidden spell.

 

An ancient weapon, a sharpened edge,

a knife, a blade, an arrowhead.

An axe, a spear, a hunting tool,

historical, ancient fire-jewel.

 

An unremarkable looking stone,

not like a ruby, jade or pearl.

A type of quartz, a milky sheen,

a mottled grey, a smoky gleam.

 

Strike the flint, absorb the past.

Splintered fragments fall like glass.

Millions of years lie in your hand,

the history of an early land.

 

We were delighted to celebrate a significant milestone for a member of our café team, Stuart Mintram (affectionately known as ‘Minty’), who joined us exactly 15 years ago yesterday. We caught up with Stuart to ask him a few questions about his time at the Pavilion, and what his plans are for the future. Here’s what he had to say:

 

My name’s Stuart, and today is my 15^th year working in the café bar at DLWP.

I started on the 27^th July 2007. I did my first coffee training up at illy in London, and joined the café team down here soon after. Speaking of which, I actually had a coffee training refresher, about a month and a half ago now, which was great. Got told off for the amount of coffee I drank though. I do drink far too much coffee. But I’m seasoned to it nowadays so it doesn’t affect me as much as it could do.

My very first day was the antiques roadshow, which was incredible. And I’ve loved the job ever since. The team was very welcoming, and still is. It’s a great building to work in, I love the place. The view from the café is amazing and it gives you a sense of pride to work in a grade one listed building.

Being here for so long, I’ve got a great rapport with the customers, who are very loyal and keep coming back. And I like making them smile, so I keep coming back too.

I only planned to be here for two years originally, but I got stuck into it and I still love it to this day. It’s absolutely fantastic working on the bar. You get to meet so many people from different walks of life. So I love it. Will I stay for anther 15 years? Who knows – we’ll see what happens.

DLWP Fundraiser Dan Scales reflects on the Pavilion’s ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ work, which we are undertaking with Natasha Player & Co:

“From its opening in 1935, the Pavilion embodied a progressive and inclusive agenda; a ‘people’s palace’ – designed by a refugee and an émigré, that would welcome people from all walks of life to nourish their ‘mind, body and soul’ with culture. Eighty-five years later, Black Lives Matter, migrant crises, climate breakdown and global pandemic have brought the structural inequalities and racism in our society to the forefront of all our minds. Not only as individuals, but here at the De La Warr Pavilion as an organisation. More than ever, it felt essential to take a step back, reflect, and reimagine what is means to be an inclusive cultural centre.

To begin exploring how DLWP can be more inclusive for our staff and our communities, we have been working alongside Natasha Player and her team – expert ‘changemakers’ who ‘draw out people’s mutual respect and understanding’.

Recent Work

Some of our staff met Natasha Player and Ebi Sosseh in August 2020 for an introductory session exploring key themes around ‘Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion’, and helping them understand Pavilion through the eyes of those who know it best – our team!

On Tuesday 29 March, we met again for the first of four collaborative workshops encompassing the whole DLWP Team. The day of activities was run by Natasha and Ebi, who spent the morning helping the team identify our ‘Unconscious Bias’. In the afternoon, we split into breakout groups to create “Listening Spaces” around specific themes.

My group focused on how to support colleagues who might be experiencing Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEMH) challenges, or be neurodivergent. We explored some inspiring stories of how we’d created equitable working environments for such colleagues, at DLWP and elsewhere, through both formal and informal strategies. This enabled us to reflect on practices that the Pavilion could introduce to ensure such colleagues can feel even more welcome in future. Other groups shared insights into staff retention & training, cross-department communication, and teambuilding. It was a brilliant to hear contributions from so many different people across the organisation – from the Café Bar team to our stewards, Gallery Assistants, Box Office and Programming teams.

Simply seeing so many ‘people of the Pavilion’ together was a testament to the vibrancy and inclusivity that already exists within the organisation. And the lively discussions we had throughout the day demonstrated a genuine shared commitment to make DLWP as welcoming as possible for staff and audiences of all ages and backgrounds, needs and creeds.

Our Ambitions

This session was just the start. The first of four throughout the year that will involve us all with the aim of giving us the knowledge, confidence, and tools to address Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion within our workplace.

We all want these sessions to lead to long-term culture change at the Pavilion. Working with Natasha in such a discursive manner feels like a great way to achieve just that. Over the coming year, we will be producing an ‘Action Plan’, informed by our staff, that embeds Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in everything we do – in a way which is meaningful to us, the DLWP team.

After each session, we hope to bring you a further blog from a different member of the Pavilion team, enabling you – our community – to come on the journey with us.”

By Dan Scales, Fundraiser

Read our full Equality, Diversity and Inclusion statement here.

What our team said

“As a newcomer, this was a well timed experience.  I have loved being welcomed into the team from across all aspects of the building, but to see what I was really part of, the large scale staffing, the ambition, the realities made me feel incredibly proud to be a member of the team.  The people in the building give it its personality, and keeps the essence of the space alive, knowing that we are being invested in, asked questions, and listened to was really important”

“Natasha and Ebi made us all feel very comfortable, the training was relevant to us, and encouraged discussion.  It was really refreshing that collectively, it wasn’t seen as an opportunity to be negative, but realistic and optimistic about change.  The main thing I took from it was that people were keen to function and operate more smoothly and to spend more time with each other; choirs, bands, yoga, parties – it shows the people power of the Pavilion”

A word from Rachel:

People know about the ancient legends of sirens and harpies as being dangerous to men and luring them to their deaths, but a less known part of this legend is that sirens and harpies are supporters of women and are full of love and desire for them. A book I own on myths and legends states that they can be ‘mystical sisters’ of women, encouraging them to live their best lives. I thought this poem I wrote fit in well with Lucy Stein’s ‘female gaze’ in Wet Room and her own mention of these fabulous, mythical creatures.

 

 

Mystical Sister

 

She signifies danger and death to men, but to women

she is a sister, an angel, a mother, protector.

A guardian of female souls.

 

She sings to us not with doom, but with love.

A mystical sister, a heavenly, welcome visitor.

If you call to her, she will answer you.

 

She belongs to the ocean, wild shores and the sky.

She speaks through the waves and a bird’s soulful cry.

A mermaid, a sea bird, a shape-shifting spirit.

 

Her vibrations move through your skull.

You sense her in your bones, but she would never crush them

or consume you. She does the opposite – she lifts you.

 

She cares for you, and she wants you to fly.

She has no wish for you to die. She remembers the bond

of this relationship bound from an ancient time.

 

She does not desire your blood or death. She is no threat

to us. She would never drown you or turn you into stone.

Her strength and courage pulse through your veins.

 

Immortal goddess of water, air, and time. I see her.

Moonlight drips from her wings, long silver talons glint.

They could slice open human skin with one touch,

 

but they disappear. Soft feathers hold us in the sweetest embrace.

The fire of the earth blazes in her colour changing eyes.

She ignites hidden dreams and urges you to rise.

 

Her words echo through the tides. Ripples of sound

become louder. She shouts! For the right to be safe, to be heard,

that our education should never be decided by men alone.

 

She casts her gaze over the world. She can see

women still denied their rights, girls denied their schools

in countries where only men can make the rules.

 

She orders us to unite, to protest, to continue the fight.

I burn and rage with them. I will use my voice

for all women to possess their freedom and choice.

 

So I love the thought of you, a magical, mystical sister.

A female goddess who strives for our truth.

Supporter of women and all that we do.

 

Words by Rachel Marsh

 

 

 

Flatland Projects are extremely excited to invite you to the opening of Sophie Goodchild’s solo exhibition; ‘Significant Other: Bulging Waters‘, Saturday 9 April 2022. This exhibition will be the first in their new Bexhill on Sea space at Beeching Road Studios.

Flatland Projects said “Those who have followed our journey will know that this has been a long term project and we are incredibly honoured to mark this occasion with Sophie’s first UK solo presentation.”

 

Date:

Saturday 9th April 2022

 

Time:

14:00 – 17:00

 

Location:

Flatland Projects

Unit 7 Beeching Road Studios

Beeching Road

Bexhill on Sea

TN39 3LJ

 

‘Significant Other: Bulging Water’ is an exhibition of felted, ceramic, stone, and salt sculptures produced throughout her experience and time of pregnancy. Goodchild’s approach to making is both connected to craft and the land through the elemental qualities in the making process. Materially, felt and ceramics derive from the fundamental need to contain, carry and protect, commonly descending from living organisms and their own surrounding ecosystems. Through connecting histories of craft, Goodchild places focus upon touch through her making as ‘sensation as translation’; an idea routed in the haptic; to feel within new realms and more importantly, to look at touch as potency.

Sophie Goodchild (b.1993, Chester, UK) lives and works in Nottingham, and has most recently been included in group presentations at Kupfer Project, London; One Thoresby Street, Nottingham; and Saatchi Gallery, London. Goodchild is currently the recipient of the Backlit Gallery studio award in Nottingham, was a recipient of the 2021 London Bronze Editions Prize and a finalist in the 2020 Ingram Prize.

Please see below a summery of the Cafe Bar and Evening Gig staff roles we are currently recruiting for. If this sounds of interest please download the full job description here and send your CV and Equal Opps form to eat.manager@dlwp.com

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

– To ensure the smooth and efficient running of the Café Bar,
Gig Bars and private events.
– To ensure a quality experience for customers visiting the DLWP Café
and attending events.
– To lead on the service aspect of a variety of private & corporate events.
– To maximise income & profitability.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

– Previous supervisory experience
– Excellent customer service skills
– Good organisational skills
– Flexibility of working hours
– Willingness to introduce & implement new procedures

ROLE OBJECTIVES

– To ensure a high quality experience for all visitors to the DLWP Café Bar
– To be responsible for the general cleanliness and presentation of all bars
– To serve customers in the DLWP Café Bar on a day to day basis
– To work gig bars on event nights
– To work banqueting style events ie: weddings, private lunches/dinners (both seated and buffet style), conferences and meetings etc.

Download full Job Description here.

How to apply: Please send your CV and Equal Opps form to Eat.manager@dlwp.com

Featuring: Lucy Stein, Bassam Al-Sabah, RESOLVE, Minoru Nomata, Zineb Sedira

Spring – January 30–May 2

Lucy Stein: Wet Room

Obsessive, unashamedly emotional and loaded with a strong psychological charge, Lucy Stein’s work incorporates a heady mixture of styles and references. Weaving together personal experiences with feminist and psychoanalytic theory, mythology and religion, her drawings, paintings and installations draw upon the concept of the “female gaze” to question the representation of women in art history. Since moving to St Just, Cornwall in 2015, Stein has become deeply involved in the history and folkloric traditions of the Cornish landscape. The exhibition centres around an installation comprising a bathtub and sink with running taps, surrounded by tiled walls hand-painted with scenes relating to the artist’s study of western esoteric traditions. Surrounding this central installation is a series of new paintings and drawings made during Stein’s second pregnancy and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, which reflect on a period of intensive domestic caregiving and anxiety. Stein has also drawn upon the modernist history and coastal setting of the De La Warr Pavilion through a new tile-based work made in response to this context.

Lucy Stein: Wet Room is commissioned and produced by Spike Island in Bristol, where it was on display from 25 September 2021 to 16 January 2022.

Bassam Al-Sabah: I AM ERROR

Bassam Al-Sabah’s exhibition explores the construction of masculinity in action-adventure video games through video, painting and sculpture, creating fantasy dreamscapes in which personal mythology, historical trauma and queer possibility intersect. The centrepiece is a 28-minute-long animation projected on to a large curved screen. It features a collection of cinematic sequences from an imaginary game in which the hero’s body is constantly in flux, undergoing metamorphoses as a result of their encounter with other lifeforms, whose physical touch makes them vulnerable to change. Combining fantasy erotica and body horror, Al-Sabah’s film celebrates the hero’s growth and transformation, as their body sprouts and blends into its surroundings, among writhing flowers and tentacular creatures. The show is punctuated by digitally sculpted objects that explore the materiality of organic decay, extending the eerie atmosphere of Al-Sabah’s animations into the gallery space.

Commissioned and produced by Gasworks, London, in partnership with the De La Warr Pavilion, with the generous support of the Freelands Foundation.

Summer: May 21–September 4

RESOLVE

RESOLVE is an interdisciplinary design collective combining architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have delivered numerous projects, workshops, publications, and talks in the UK and across Europe, all of which look toward realising just and equitable visions of change in our built environment. Their major new commission, realised in partnership with the De La Warr Pavilion, Wellcome Collection and West Dean College makes use of the rich resources and histories at each partner site to investigate humanity’s entangled relationship with the vegetal world, inviting new perspectives on environmentalism, re-wilding, and practical solutions to living equitably with others and in nature. Researching new and ancient approaches to land use while on residency at West Dean College, the collective has been collaborating with young people in Bexhill-on-Sea and London to create new commissions for this solo exhibition and inclusion in the Wellcome Collection’s Rooted Beings exhibition (24 March – 29 August 2022). Titled What The Wild Things Are, the project surveys the geographical, political and ecological contexts of each institution – the coastal, the urban and the rural – probing predeterminations of what and who is “wild” in these contexts and challenging our preconceived separation of built and “natural” environments.

Minoru Nomata

The visionary paintings of Minoru Nomata depict imaginary landscapes that transcend time and place. Featuring architectural superstructures and topographical forms devoid of human presence, his uncanny depictions are portals into mysterious and uncertain worlds. Growing up in Tokyo’s industrial district of Meguro during a period of rapid urban and economic growth in Japan, Nomata became fascinated by the structural design of factories, chimneys, and water towers. At the Tokyo University of the Arts he studied European and Asian art, particularly classical Islamic patterns, and became drawn to the Machine Age and the modernism of American Precisionist, Charles Sheeler. It is these formative influences that have remained a constant in how Nomata creates each of his works, which blend the industrial, the fantastical, the archaic and the futuristic. Brutalist in beauty, aerodynamic in form and ambient in their atmosphere, Nomata’s landscapes are meditations on an ever-changing world and vehicles to alternative futures. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition outside of Asia.

 

Autumn: September 24, 2022–January 8, 2023

Zineb Sedira

Spanning both of the De La Warr Pavilion’s galleries, this major solo exhibition by Zineb Sedira will be her first in a UK public gallery for 12 years. Working across photography, installation and film, Sedira draws upon her personal history and close connection to Algeria, France and the UK to explore ideas of identity, mobility, gender, environment and collective memory. Throughout her career, Sedira has become a leading voice in addressing the question of what it means to live between different cultures, often bringing together autobiographical narration, fiction and documentary genres. This exhibition will focus on the artist’s ongoing investigation into the conditions of transnational trade and migrant consciousness in a post-colonial context, within which the sea is a recurring motif.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the De La Warr Pavilion and Dundee Contemporary Arts.

 

Further details of the De La Warr Pavilion’s exhibitions programme can be found at dlwp.com

Our exhibitions are accompanied by an expansive engagement programme including tours, events, and workshops for all ages. They offer opportunities to develop connections, curiosity, skills, understanding and creative potential. Please visit dlwp.com/learning for more information.

Create Music, a joint collaboration bringing together the educational services of Brighton & Hove Music & Arts (BHMA) and East Sussex Music (ESM) will offer music tuition to more people across the South East region.

As one of the largest providers of music education in the UK, Create Music reaches over 18,500 children and young people across 262 participating schools and music centres, spanning from Hove to Hastings. The service is managed by Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival, as part of their remit to remove barriers to cultural experiences across age, ability and communities. The service has recently expanded its offer to online courses for adults from beginners to advanced level.

Chair of Create Music and Director of De La Warr Pavilion, Stewart Drew said:

“We’re really excited to be launching Create Music as the new name for the music services in the South East region with a fantastic new website. Create Music aims to offer easy access to music making across more communities, from school pupils to older learners. The benefits of singing, learning an instrument and playing together is immeasurable and we’ve seen how it can improve people’s lives for the better.”

Research from the University of Sussex School of Psychology found that music education can have a profoundly positive impact on young people’s wellbeing, mental health and social skills, particularly those who are marginalised, at risk, or in need of support. It concluded that making music, writing lyrics and developing personal music tastes allows young people to explore and express their emotions and discover their identity, empowering individuals and giving them a community in which they can thrive.

Andrew Comben, Chief Executive, Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival commented:

“Whether someone is picking up an instrument for the first time, or studying at a professional level, we want to inspire everyone to enjoy and take part in making music.”

Both services have a long history in teaching music and have an impressive list of alumni who have forged successful professional careers, including Grammy nominated composer John Powell, known for his work on films such as Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon and percussionist Rosie Bergonzi who has performed with Neneh Cherry and Chineke! Orchestra.

Rosie commented:

“I joined the music service aged 15, after stumbling into the world of classical music at the back of my school orchestra. I was exposed to so many different forms of music, things that still feed into my playing and teaching today and I was given opportunities that stretched me and enabled me to shine. My family weren’t well off, but the bursaries meant that I could follow my passion to learn and grow. I’m so grateful to the music service and the way it broadened my horizons. It helped me to realise music making could be my life.”

 

Create Music services are in participating schools, music centres and online. Tuition fees aim to be affordable, with funding available for families who may need support.

Full details can be found at:

createmusic.org.uk

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