Thank you to our holiday artists, Finlay Forbes Gower and Babalola Yusuf
We want to extend our warmest thanks to our two holiday family workshop artists, Finlay Forbes Gower and Babalola Yusuf, for designing and delivering a series of exciting creative workshops to children of all ages, families, and adults during the school holidays over the last year. Together, their efforts meant that the local community had plenty of opportunities to get creative and express themselves through a range of artistic techniques.
We caught up with them both to ask them about their experience and what their future plans are:
What made this opportunity significant to you?
Finlay: At the time, I had just moved down to East Sussex and didn’t know as many people or the area particularly well. The role offered a valuable opportunity not only for my career as an artist and educator but also to integrate deeper with the local community and to learn from the participants and to work with and meet other artists.
Babalola: Getting to see the families experiment with the materials, to see them venture into the unknown! Which is perhaps a good way to discover something significant and opportune!
In what ways did the programme enhance your skills and professional practice?
Finlay: The programme developed two specific areas for me, firstly the opportunity to create art-based workshops for a really broad age range of people with diverse needs and backgrounds. Secondly the opportunity to collaborate with another artist who I hadn’t worked with before in the context of the De La Warr Pavilion. I feel that both elements developed my skills in communication and adaptation, learning to consider many elements at once whilst also trying to remain true to my personal ideas and ambitions too.
Babalola: I think it reinforced the need for studio-like environments where people can come up with and develop their ideas which is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. And I guess this has caused me to think about it much more.
How did consistently working with families differ from your usual practice?
Finlay: Within my work as an artist educator, I am quite used to working with children and adults separately and so it was really interesting and lovely to bring both together in one space. I especially liked moments where the parents / adults were working together with the children or with other adults to create things which was great to see and feel more of a sense of collective coming together.
Babalola: Well I do work with communities from time to time. But I suppose most of my practice involves solo work, making paintings, sculptures or editing photos or videos. So it’s always a breath of fresh air working with families. Even if it is at times a breath of mountainous air with little oxygen. At least the view is breathtaking!
What was the highlight of your year, or your favourite moment from the workshops?
Finlay: There were so many highlights really from each workshop as very different things emerged from them. Overall though, I really enjoyed making the giant marble run workshop with the families on the top balcony as from the beginning to the end, everyone was involved and on their hands and knees trying to get the marble run to work effectively! Within the session, there were so many laughs and challenges and I felt it really brought people together through play, creativity and problem solving.
Babalola: I have several. But if I were to pick one at random, it would be from the ‘make a scene’ workshop. During it, one of the children made a world that could be seen only from above. When told that this would mean we couldn’t stack another world on top she insisted it had to be seen that way. And to my surprise it was genius because her shoebox worked as one of the worlds that sat on top of a stack, completing the column of worlds.
What was your most significant challenge, and what changes would you make?
Finlay: I think the most significant challenge was working around the health and safety remits for the building. Whilst I really also do see why some of the restrictions are in place and the priority on safety, at times the limitations seemed over the top and hindered some potentials which in other contexts would have been safe to do.
I’m not sure if that could be changed really! However perhaps knowing all of the limitations from the get go may have made for being more realistic with expectations or what’s possible to achieve.
Babalola: I think the building was our biggest challenge. Much like the child mentioned above, it was quite insistent. We often had to revise our ideas at it’s request, or at the request of its keepers. I don’t think there’s anything you can change about that.
What are your future plans and goals as an artist?
Finlay: A dream/goal/vision is to start my own outdoor arts school one day for all ages encompassing theatre and arts. If you know anyone with some money to fund it – please reach out!!!
Babalola: I want to make shoebox worlds but life size, so that people can wander through them. I suppose what I’m describing is a theatre or film set, except in a gallery.
Posted by Daisy Jerome on Tuesday 7 July 2026