• Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood, 2024, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris

  • Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood, 2024, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris

  • Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood, 2024, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris

  • Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood, 2024, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris

  • Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood, 2024, Installation View, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-On-Sea. Photography: Rob Harris

The UK premiere of the Berlin-based artist’s documentary fiction film, presenting a speculative narrative of maritime and epidemiological movement across oceanic space and time.

Clara Jo (b. 1986, United States) works with film, photography, and installation to re-engage socio-political understandings of the world in ways that entangle the senses. She plays with speculative narratives to offer alternative readings of certain landscapes, examining their material imprints and deep erasures. By reimagining these contexts through her work, Jo questions how these stories can feed into our collective imaginations during moments of crisis.

For her first institutional solo exhibition in the UK, Jo presents the documentary fiction film, Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood. This new film is grounded by documentary footage shot by the artist whilst embedded with a research group from Mauritian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage on location in Albion and Flat Island, Mauritius. In Albion, Jo filmed the excavation and preliminary analysis of human skeletal remains from an unmarked cemetery on a former cotton plantation and sugar estate, as well as footage from Flat Island, an uninhabited islet located twelve kilometres off the north coast of Mauritius. This islet had been used as a 19th-century quarantine and detention station for indentured labour during several waves of the cholera epidemic.

Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood weaves fictive elements through the concrete realities of these ghostly terrains via computer-generated animation drawn from her research within colonial archives in London. In doing so, the work makes visible certain scars that are hidden within these island landscapes and highlights the human capacity to forget the most traumatic parts of our history, privileging sanitised versions of the past in their place.

The film is narrated through the perspective of the Paille-en-queue bird, who has inherited oral histories from their ancestors of all they have witnessed from an aerial perspective. Spanning different elevations and time registers, this avian narrator highlights and commemorates erased and unknown histories from the legacy of British and French colonialism and movements of indentured labour across the Afrasian Sea (Indian Ocean).

Watch the trailer for Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood here.

Clara Jo: Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood | Exhibition Film

Jo’s work has been exhibited and screened at Gropius Bau, Berlin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; ARKO Art Center, Seoul; Spike Island, Bristol; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, and Edith-Russ Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg. She has previously held fellowships and residencies at Art Explora, Paris; Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, USA.

IN THE PRESS

Clara’s film, Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood was recently featured in the latest issue of Art Monthly issue. Find out more and read their review here.

Staying locally

There are plenty of welcoming and good value B&Bs & boutique hotels in Bexhill. The De La Warr Pavilion regularly uses the following:

The Relais Cooden Beach Hotel and Spa

Coastal hotel with white picket fence under a clear blue sky. Brown-roofed buildings face a nearby beach with umbrellas, creating a tranquil seaside atmosphere.

Situated on a private beach with uninterrupted views of the English Channel, this immaculately restored four-star hotel is just a 10-minute drive from De La Warr Pavilion. Receive 10% discount on rooms* from Sunday to Thursday (excluding Fridays and Saturdays) using the promo code DLWP. BOOK NOW.

*Offer available until 31 March 2026 (blackout dates apply). Free cancellation up to 24 hours before arrival. Paid partnership with The Relais Cooden Beach Hotel & Spa.

Travel information
  • By Rail
    Direct trains go from London Victoria, Brighton and Ashford to Bexhill.
    There are also trains from London Charing Cross, changing at St. Leonards Warrior Square and from London Bridge or Charing Cross going to Battle. Battle is only a short taxi journey away (15 mins approx).
    Visit www.nationalrail.co.uk for up-to-date train travel information.
  • Taxis
    Town Taxis:  01424 211 511
    Parkhurst Taxis:  01424 733 456
  • By Car
    If driving from the London area:
    Take the M25, then A21 to Hastings. Turn off at John‘s Cross and follow the signs to Bexhill.
    OR
    Take the A22 to Eastbourne, go across the Bishop roundabout to the A271 and follow the signs to Bexhill and the seafront. The De La Warr Pavilion is on the Marina.
    From the Brighton area:
    Follow the A27 out of Brighton until you arrive in Bexhill On Sea.
  • Parking
    Please be aware the Rother District car park outside the De La Warr Pavilion operates paid parking until 10pm. After this time parking is free. There is also limited free car parking along the seafront.
Accessibility

Within the limits of this Grade One listed building, the De La Warr Pavilion strives to be fully accessible with a range of facilities to support your visit.

Assistance Dogs are permitted into the building.

Please contact the Box Office on 01424 229 111 to arrange a visit.

Facilities for disabled visitors

  • Ramped access at the front of the building
  • A low counter at the Box Office and  Information Desk
  • Disabled toilets on two floors
  • A lift to all floors
  • Accessible galleries on both floors
  • An accessible Café
  • Spaces for wheelchairs in the auditorium for seated events
  • Ramped access in the auditorium for events during the day
  • Ramped access into the Studio
  • Two travel wheelchairs are available for use at the De La Warr Pavilion. To reserve, please call our box office and information desk on (01424) 229111 or ask a member of staff on arrival. The chairs are provided on a first come, first served basis and are intended for use inside the Pavilion. Please contact us for more information.

Facilities for blind or visually-impaired

  • Large print season brochures

Facilities for the hard-of-hearing

  • An T-Switch induction loop in some areas of the auditorium (please indicate when booking as this facility is not available on the balcony)
  • British Sign Language interpretation tours of the building and exhibitions are available on request.

Sensory Bags

  • Sensory bags will be available from the Ground floor or First floor gallery and contain supportive items for people with neurodivergence, anxiety or sensory sensitives.Sensory bags include:
    One set of ear defenders
    A selection of fidget toys
    One soft foam stress ball
    A set of 6 coloured paddles
    One light up magnifying glass.You can sign one out and bring it back before you leave.