Charred remains of Eastbourne pier rise again as artistic tribute to seaside fun
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Version 0 of 1. There are reports of visitors smelling the huge, heavy artwork on display at Eastbourne’s Towner art gallery and the artist is delighted. “I like the sound of that,” said Wycliffe Stutchbury, “it does have that bitter, musky scent of fire.” The reason is because the two-metre square wall-hung artwork is made from the charred remains of Eastbourne pier, badly damaged in a headline-grabbing fire one year ago on Thursday. Stutchbury, who lives in the town, has vivid memories of the day when the pier went up in flames. “It was surprising how the town mourned,” he said. “I don’t think people appreciated how much part of the town’s landscape the pier was, it was one of those things people had grown up with. It was like the town’s identity had been vandalised.” Stutchbury has worked with wood throughout his career and watched, covetously, as the burnt remains of the pier piled up during the cleanup, eventually persuading the site manager to let him have some. The remains included tongue and groove sections of maple which would have been in the original sprung ballroom floor, covered with layers of glue and lino for the more recent amusement arcade. There were also corroded iron railings, decking from the walkway, lumps of fused aluminium and melted parts from arcade machines that dripped through the pier, onto the beach. With all that, Stutchbury has constructed a reinterpreted “ballroom floor” which will be on display at the Towner gallery this summer, only a few hundred yards from where the fire took place. “It was almost like archiving the material,” he said. “It felt like an editorial project.” The work, called Eastbourne Pier, might be seen as a commemoration or a memorial but Stutchbury hopes it will go further than that. “I want the work to be something more optimistic than a memorial, to be a record in a way and show some appreciation of the continuing story of material. “The fire was devastating, literally and emotionally, but things can – without being too cheesy – emerge from the ashes.” Related: Eastbourne's Victorian pier goes up in flame – in pictures Within days of the fire last July, David Cameron and George Osborne visited Eastbourne and pledged £2m to help restore the pier. The fire was originally investigated as a suspected arson but no conclusive evidence was discovered and the case was closed by police this month. About a third of the pier was destroyed in the fire although it has not gone the way of Brighton’s West pier which had fallen in to a terrible state before fires in 2003 put it, in the view of English Heritage, beyond repair. Parts of Eastbourne pier did reopen to traders last September. The finished artwork is a commemoration of a day that brought dramatic images. Stutchbury said: “It is a record of the fire but, also, hopefully people will see that something has come from the fire.” • Eastbourne Pier is part of the East Sussex Open at Towner art gallery until 20 September |