Ryan Gander's first UK solo show in nearly 20 years opens at Towner on 14 November: pay what you can from £5, free under 25, until 11 April 2027.

Towner Eastbourne’s winter exhibition is the artist Ryan Gander’s first UK solo show in nearly 20 years. Maybe: Ryan Gander opens on Saturday 14 November and runs until Sunday 11 April 2027.

Tickets are pay what you can, from £5 to £14, and free for anyone under 25. That is according to Towner’s exhibition page, which says booking is “opening soon”.

The quick answer

  • Dates: Saturday 14 November 2026 to Sunday 11 April 2027.
  • Price: pay what you can, £5 to £14, chosen at checkout. Free for under-25s.
  • Tickets: any ticket gets you in at any time on the day you book. Booking had not opened on 31 October.
  • Where: three rooms on Towner’s top floor, with work spilling into the building’s public spaces. Towner is in Devonshire Park, College Road, BN21 4JJ.

What is in it

Towner says the show mixes new work with pieces that are rarely seen, several of them never shown in the UK before. The works it names are:

  • Closed Systems (2024): a floor covered in colourful repurposed toys, laid out in a fully mirrored room.
  • I’ve felt everything I’m going to feel - The Unspeakable World: the latest of Gander’s animatronic mice, which pop out of a hole in the wall to philosophise. Each is voiced by one of his daughters. This one is new to the UK.
  • Upside down Breuer chair after a couple of inches of snowfall (2017): a mid-century design chair with cold-cast marble “snow” on top.
  • For I am a Sign: new paintings made with Gander’s autistic, non-verbal son. His son picks the images and Gander paints them. They draw on the Picture Exchange Communication System, the card system used by SEND professionals to communicate with children. Towner says visitors will be among the first to see the series.
  • Ryan Waiting (2024): Gander’s first artificial intelligence work. A wrap-around bank of screens shows an avatar of the artist waiting in an empty landscape. Its behaviour is generated by an algorithm and changes with the time of day and internet search data. Towner calls it a “durational hundred-year performance”.

Gander describes himself, in Towner’s words, as “a sort of neo-conceptual no-style-style amateur philosopher”. The gallery says his use of humour gives people a way into contemporary art that can otherwise feel exclusive.

Before it opens

The current main exhibition, the Danish artist Cecilia Fiona’s first UK institutional solo show, closes on Sunday 1 November, Towner’s what’s on page shows.

The Ravilious Collection stays on show throughout. It is free, but ticketed, and open Tuesday to Sunday and on bank holiday Mondays. Towner opens at 10am.

What it means for you

If you are under 25, this one costs nothing. For everyone else the lowest price, £5, is less than half the £11 adult ticket Towner charged for its summer exhibition, which we listed on our things to do in Eastbourne page.

The show runs for five months, so there is no rush. Booking was not yet open on Saturday; Towner’s page will carry the link when it is.