Navine G Dossos offers new Eastbourne public exhibition

Navine G Dossos has developed Riviera in the Devonshire Ward, Seaside, in partnership with Devonshire Collective. The project follows free intergenerational workshops led by the artist and includes awnings across the town and an exhibition at Devonshire Collective’s VOLT Gallery until September 15.

Spokeswoman Keziah Keeler said: “Artist Navine G Dossos has conducted workshops with over 50 residents of Eastbourne's Devonshire Ward to create Riviera, a public art commission led by Towner Eastbourne in collaboration with Devonshire Collective. The commission has resulted in a communal and community-designed textile pattern made from 24 stencils relating to the neighbourhood, its history, its population, its businesses, its flora and fauna and its location in the town. A Devonshire Ward-specific language of symbols – featuring palm trees, local gelato, a movie camera and the pier – has been brought together by Dossos to fashion the rich and vibrant textile.

“Cuttings from the fabric will be produced in two different weights and made available for free to those living locally as part of an exhibition at Devonshire Collective's VOLT gallery until September 15.

"Those who take fabric are invited to make their own personal objects and clothes and share them through an online archive. This way, the fabric pattern will become a tangible part of the town, both in domestic and public spaces.”

Navine said: “Working in Eastbourne, I was really interested in the idea of how the town was developed in the 19th century to look like something abroad, like the English Riviera was trying to look like continental Europe. I spent a lot of time walking around the neighbourhood collecting images, and I created symbols that became a visual shorthand for these things that are part of the environment.

"It was important to think about how these symbols relate to the community in different ways. For example, the pier is a place of landing, it's a place that you arrive at. It’s not just the kind of pier which is to do with leisure, it's also to do with what this thing means at a deeper level for people that live in Eastbourne who are not here as tourists or day trippers.”

Keziah added: “The basic premise of Riviera began with the history of the palm trees found across the Devonshire Ward. The planting of these kinds of exotic trees was to create a sense of travel, of being elsewhere and reference an otherness or foreignness related to holidays abroad. Many British seaside resorts modelled themselves on the idea of the French and Italian rivieras, but what was once alluded to in architectural detail is now part of everyday life in the Devonshire Ward. Riviera celebrates the area’s cultural diversity and considers contemporary ideas of belonging in a place built to feel, in a romantic sense, unfamiliar.”

Also showing, Verity-Jane Keefe has developed The Findings in locations across Shinewater and Langney. Children from local schools have been working alongside residents and the artist at free workshops.