Young men watching themselves in the cinema

Ben Burbridge from Sussex with young man and his mum, looking at ‘zines they made as part of the workshops

Young men standing with their life-size versions of themselves

Young men showing their family around the exhibition of Jesse Darlings work

The Towner Eastbourne gallery held a special screening, on Wednesday 20 March, for a group of students from Peacehaven Community School and their families, to celebrate the end of a series of educational workshops they had completed with the University’s Widening Participation team.

The film screening and workshops form part of our Education Partnership with Towner Eastbourne, who hosted the prestigious, annual Turner Prize, in 2023. As part of the workshops, the students, who were young men aged between 13 and 14 years old, visited the Turner Prize exhibition at Towner, took part in video and drumming workshops on our campus with Sussex academics and created a film about their experience.

This project aimed to help the young men experience what university life is like and consider new possibilities for themselves.

Peacehaven Community School, is one of several schools in the region that our Widening Participation team work closely with to support attainment and empower young people to make decisions about their futures.

Patrick Pink, project lead at the University, shared his experience of the workshops and working with the young men:

"It has been a genuine pleasure working with such an engaged, creative and brave group of young people. They have thrown themselves headfirst into every new challenge we presented them with, and the piece of film they created is fantastic. Our work in Widening Participation is designed to support students to make informed decisions about their future, and we hope their experience with the University has equipped them to do just that."

The evening was a fantastic celebration of the creative process the boys had been through. Logan, a student who participated in the workshops, told us:

“I was quite proud of the film but it was a bit funny seeing us all on camera. It boosted my confidence and I felt more comfortable on camera afterwards.

The workshop series was a pilot scheme run by our Widening Participation team and the impact of the project will be analysed by academics Emily Danvers and Dave Davies. The hope is this work can be developed into a fuller series of workshops to support local schools in the region.