54 GSCENE OUT & ABOUT
ART
AT THE LIBRARY OF MEMORIES
M AT T E R S
Local poet Maria Jastrzębska’s new
book, At the Library of Memories,
leads the reader from the ghost of
one room to another, via the senses
and catching at fragments of
stories. This is an invitation to
examine not only individual,
arresting memories - at once
familiar and disturbing - but the
process of remembering itself. How
we come to terms with our own
past and what collectively we make
of it are questions running in and
out of these vivid, exciting poems.
BY ENZO MARRA
TOWNER
Devonshire Park, College Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 4JJ
Tel: 01323 434670, www.townereastbourne.org.uk
Sunday January 6 is your last opportunity to enter works for the EAST
SUSSEX OPEN 2013, an open submission exhibition at Eastbourne’s
Towner Gallery. Returning for its fourth year (Sat Mar 9–Sun Apr 28),
the exhibition is open to artists working in any media who live or
work in East Sussex. The exhibition is designed to showcase the
wealth of regional artistic talent on Eastbourne’s doorstep and also
coincides with the sixth year of the Eastbourne Festival, (Sat Mar
30–Sun Apr 21). Previous exhibitions included large scale sculptures
and a video installation showing iconic landmarks along the South
coast from a swimmer’s perspective, as well as a toilet made of
chocolate.
Koester, Edward Stott and Kelly Richardson, who is soon to solo
exhibit in the upcoming show Legion (Sat Feb 2–Sun April 14) and
has lent a series of photographs to the show. Bon Hiver is a traditional
French greeting, which when directly translated means “good winter”.
It is often used for the day the first snowfall sticks to the ground.
MARIA JASTRZĘBSKA
On show in the same
gallery all month (until
Sun Mar 3), BON HIVER: A
JOURNEY THROUGH A
WINTER LANDSCAPE is a
Towner Collection display
which takes you on a
journey through the winter
landscape, featuring iconic
works such as Eric Ravilious’s Downs in Winter and The Forked Forest
Path by Olafur Eliasson, whose artwork The Weather Project remains
one of Tate’s most popular Turbine Hall installations. Towner acquired
The Forked Forest Path through the Contemporary Art Society in 2003
and this is the first time the forest installation has been shown in the
new building. The display also features works by Christopher Wood,
William Gear, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Duncan Grant, Joachim
KELLY RICHARDSON
THE FORKED FOREST PATH
Exhibitions Curator, Sanna Moore, will once again lead the judging
panel, with guest selectors artists Alessandro Raho and Susan Diab
both with a wealth of experience. Raho’s works have featured all round
the world including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Berado Collection in Lisbon
and a commission of Dame Judi Dench for the National Portrait
Gallery, London. Susan Diab has worked as a freelance artist and
collaborated on a number of projects including public commissions,
artist-led initiatives, outreach projects and open studios. Her work has
appeared in many galleries across the UK including Towner and Turner
Contemporary in Margate.
Interested artists have until 4pm, Sunday January 6 (arrival time in
Eastbourne) to post an application form, images and details of up to
five pieces of work and a CV and Artist’s Statement. To download an
application form visit the Towner website.
“In Maria Jastrzębska's new
collection memory is a powerful and
truthful tool, admitting fallibility
and never exceeding its prerogative, yet evoking a whole world of tastes
and smells, longings, anxieties and human needs. This is vivid, thoughtprovoking poetry that takes us by stages to the heart of the immigrant
experience and leaves us with urgent questions which imperceptibly have
become our own.” Susan Wicks
“Maria Jastrzębska's epic new collection is fabulous, audacious and
compelling; here are dazzling conjurings of lost times and places,
tremendously moving elegies, and astonishing fragments of intricate
stories recovered from lost worlds. This exceptional collection is the work
of a poet at the height of her imaginative powers.” Nick Drake.
Maria Jastrzębska was born in
Warsaw, Poland and came to
England as a child. A founder of
South Pole artist’s network and
Queer Writing South she now
lives in Brighton. At the Library
of Memories is her third full
length collection. She is cotranslator of Elsewhere by Iztok
Osojnik with Ana Jelnikar
(Pighog Press, 2011) and has
co-edited several anthologies.
Her poems feature in the British
Library project Between Two Worlds an \