LIVE EDITIONS is a new programme of movement, sound and performance in Eastbourne & the South Downs. It launches summer 2026, with 25+ artists from Sussex and further afield leading residencies, workshops, gatherings and performances.
There is now a website over at www.liveeditions.org
Live Editions has evolved from research (2024-6) exploring how to create a place-based initiative here through conversations with artists, activists, ecologists, rangers and farmers, councillors, community stakeholders and arts organisations.
This first year of programming will be taking place across community and cultural spaces in Eastbourne and the South Downs National Park. It is funded by Arts Council England and supported in-kind by Towner Eastbourne, Devonshire Collective, Leaf Hall, Home Live Art, Bread & Butter PR and Live Art Development Agency.
Activities have been co-designed with artists and partner organisations with an intention to offer spaces to meet, exchange, and collaborate, and with a long-term commitment to supporting the conditions for bold live work to thrive in unfettered and imaginative ways. The idea is to test a range of approaches to place-based working, with artists leading residencies, workshops, gatherings and performances which offer spaces for research, participation, and convivial and creative exchange among and between artists and audiences.
Live Editions begins July 2026 with three residencies: Charlie Ashwell delves into dance and magic with outside eye Seke Chimutengwende in Working Titles; Yanaëlle Ritter explores moving and choreographing on sand in Shifting Sites with mentor Sue MacLennan, and Carolyn Roy’s Civil Twilight: listening between day and night turns to sound and space, using openwave radio receivers and bodies to sense sounds in the Downs at dawn and dusk. Each of these summer residencies invites audiences into the artists’ creative processes through informal open studios and sharings.
Please see What’s On how you can get involved.
The programme continues in September with a public workshop, BODY & LAND co-led by four of the Sussex-based Dancers in Landscape group Yumino Seki, Mim King, Korina Biggs and Clare Whistler for anyone curious about exploring moving in nature, while in autumn Samra Mayanja and Mary Osborn (Director, Live Art Development Agency) lead a voice workshop for people who have ever had words stuck in their throat, have struggled to speak and/or police their thoughts.
Research dialogues (which are more behind-the-scenes) thread through the programme year, exploring potential and sites for future collaboration with artists Jean Abreu & MIchael Johnson, Anna Maria Nabirye/Afri-Co-Lab, Margarita Zafrilla-Olayo and Claudia Kappenberg, while Redoubt Dialogues commissioned by Devonshire Collective explore live events in the fascinating Redoubt Fortress with some of the artists and curators who have worked there in the past - Judith Alder, Marina Castledine, Elizabeth Doak, Fran Stovold, Karen Taylor, Clare Whistler.
Further ahead, in February 2027, sound-based performances by Vida Vojić, and by Tim Etchells with Pouya Desai, come to Towner Eastbourne, while Graeme Miller and Lydia Newman host a public conversation inspired by Eastbourne’s cherished starling murmuration on the Pier.
This first year of LIVE EDITIONS will conclude in May 2027 with events led by Stacy Makishi and Stuart Waters, and with Present Conditions, a weekend in which artists will come together to exchange movement scores in the Downs - Ben Ash, Ginny Farman, Heni Hale, Rachel Lopez de la Nieta and zanni tonietto, with more artists to be confirmed.
Please follow us on Instagram @liveeditions_ check the latest and sign up for occasional updates at www.liveeditions.org