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