Alison Wilding and Florence Peake in conversation
Hatty Nestor, Studio International
March 2019
Situated in Bexhill, East Sussex, the De La Warr Pavilion embodies an aura of calm, tranquillity and mystery. Its setting on the town’s marina has a significant bearing on the gallery-goer’s viewing experience. Gazing out of the rear window to the English Channel, one has a profound sense of expansiveness, possibility and openness that is often lacking in more enclosed, city-based institutions and galleries. Opened in 1935 and named after the ninth Earl De La Warr, who was the driving force behind its creation, the pavilion was designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. Its rich history and location make for an unusual visitor experience.
The gallery is currently home to Alison Wilding’s solo show Right Here and Out There and Florence Peake’s exhibition RITE: On This Pliant Body We Slip Our WOW!, which came out of a performance there, on 6 May, that Peake devised and choreographed, in which a host of dancers performed in six tonnes of wet clay. […]