Installation View, Brewers Towner International, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

2022, Video Installation, Loop.

Brewers Towner International, a biennial exhibition of contemporary visual arts, returns to Towner Eastbourne, featuring a range of artists, local, national and international, coming together to share work that addresses the theme of SANCTUARY.

SANCTUARY can be interpreted as a physical space, a place offering safe haven, asylum or refuge; it can be understood as an area or environment where endangered species are protected, diverse ecosystems flourish and life is preserved and it can also suggest a space of the imagination, a meditative mental space of solace and respite from the exterior world.

An exhibition curated by: Noelle Collins, Elizabeth Price, Sepake Angiama and Joe Hill.

Maud Haya-Baviera uses literature, cinema and any other material able to convey narratives, which she then playfully subverts to provoke new meanings. Her current work applies visual experiments to test, reveal and challenge social and political constructs. More broadly, her work is centred on emancipatory concerns.

‘Things Fall Apart,’ is a video installation currently on display at Towner, which developed through the artists’ desire to create something that was a response to, or at least investigation of, her emotions surrounding the pandemic.

She said, “I often find inspiration in literature, so I picked up a copy of Robinson Crusoe hoping that within it, I would find a manual to build a sanctuary, a place for self realisation and a refuge from the dreariness of isolation, as did Crusoe on his Desert Island. Instead, this video work reveals how the myth of the tropical island has been bestowed upon us for centuries, and how the paradisiacal ideas of immaculate sand beaches, haven for wildlife and fauna, are linked to historical exploitation.”

See ‘Things Fall Apart’ as part of Brewers Towner International, an open call exhibition of contemporary art running from 15 October 2022 until 22 January 2023.

Photos by Rob Harris.