EASTBOURNE.- This year, Towner Eastbourne invited members of the LGBTQIA+ community in East Sussex to take part in a unique creative project, exploring personal responses to artworks in the Towner Collection, through a queer lens. The results of this project are a brand new podcast series which launches on Friday 29 November and can be heard on all the popular podcast platforms as well as at www.townereastbourne.org.uk

This Collectively podcast series was funded by the The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund administered by the Museums Association and Art Fund.

Working with artist Renee Vaughan Sutherland, participants came together in a series of group sessions to view and discuss a selection of artworks, chosen by Renee, by artists such as Frances Hodgkins, Patricia Preece and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Exploring successive themes of the body, the body in landscape and queer narratives in the Collection, the group shared the thoughts, associations, and connections that each of these artworks inspired.

Participants were then encouraged to select an artwork(s) that personally resonated, and following a period of research and reflection, were invited to return to Towner to discuss their selected artwork(s), in conversation with Renee.

The resulting conversations form Collectively, a series of eight podcast episodes that open up the Towner Collection for others, through memories, emotions and experiences of queerness.

Those who took part in the workshops and making the podcast included: Harry McMorrow, Vicki Norman, Andrea Mindel, Flo Wright, Eva Jonas, Emily Love, David Harris, John Manuell, Stephen Deutz and Matthew Davies.

In her artist practice, Renee works with the gaze’s sculpting potential of gender and sexual identity, using film, performance and expanded cinema. Renee is passionate about equality within the creative industries and founded Greater than 11% - a small agency promoting creative careers and shouting about incredible creative women and non-binary folk.

On the project Renee said, “Working with Towner Eastbourne and members of East Sussex’s queer community was a delight. The project connected me with people in the present but also in the past and has been instrumental in developing my thinking and art practice”

Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Sara Cooper, added, “We are delighted to launch Collectively. We are always looking for new ways to open up how audiences access our Collection and it’s been so interesting to work with the group to discuss several of our works from their perspectives. The podcasts are accessible anywhere, and I am really looking forward to our audiences both locally and much further afield engaging with them and enjoying the insights and talking points which they invite.”

An exhibition curated by members of the Collectively community of works from the Towner Collection will take place in Summer 2022.