Towner Eastbourne appoints new CEO and director

Towner Eastbourne has appointed a new CEO and Director. Martin Clark, who previously worked with Towner as a member of the Turner Prize 2023 jury, joins the team after nearly a decade as director of Camden Art Centre, London.

Clark has been appointed by a panel led by Stephen Welton CBE, chair of Towner’s Board of Trustees and chair of British Business Bank, with president of the board David Dimbleby.

Clark’s appointment comes ahead of the development of Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, a new cultural destination near Eastbourne in the South Downs National Park.

Delivered in partnership with Eastbourne Borough Council with funding from the UK Government and Arts Council England, development of the new site will begin in early 2027 as Clark joins.

Towner Seen Sisters will include a new gallery building and refurbished historic Downland farm buildings providing heritage, learning and community engagement spaces.

Before taking over at Camden Art Centre, Clark was director at Bergen Kunsthall in Norway from 2013 to 2017, and prior to that became the youngest Tate director, taking up the post of artistic director at Tate St Ives from 2007 to 2013.

Welton said the new appointment “will bring creativity, expertise and dynamism to the next stage of Towner’s evolution.

“He will be a great complement to the wider leadership of Towner, building on the success of recent years, overseeing important new projects such as Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, and we all look forward to working with him.”

On his appointment, Clark said: “I’m enormously excited to be joining Towner at this pivotal moment for the organisation.

“Towner is already the largest and most significant museum and gallery of modern and contemporary art in the southeast, but with the delivery of Towner Seven Sisters at Black Robin Farm, we have the opportunity to create a new kind of arts organisation.”