Pascal Dowers and Paulina Anzorge, arts entrepreneurs and salonniers
What brought you to Sussex?
Living in London, I (Pascal) regularly visited Brighton – since as far back as the 80s – for its exciting clubs and music venues. In 2018 I started a business nearby, and came here initially with the idea of staying just for a year or two. Paulina left Krakow to taste the emerging art scene in Margate, then moved here to study at Brighton University. She didn’t reckon on staying in Brighton that long, either, but we’ve both now been here for many years. We met in our local pub (The Wick) just before Covid.
Our love of the Regency and Victorian architecture, the beautiful home we live in by the sea, the gorgeous countryside surrounding us and the creative people we’ve befriended here, have all made it easy for us to stay. And London, if we need it, is just a short hop away.
What do you think of Brighton and Sussex’s cultural offering?
It’s both very, very good, and it’s very, very bad. Brighton’s music scene is so excellent and getting better all the time, with an amazing variety of great artists visiting and basing themselves in the city, and performing in a wide choice of venues such as the Green Door Store, Prince Albert, Concorde 2, Hope & Ruin, Dome and Brighton Centre. Meanwhile the visual art scene has been in a spiral of decline since we both arrived, not just due to a lack of funding but a lack of quality, too.
Where Brighton fails, the rest of the county excels. In recent years, there has been an impressive explosion of great arts venues opening and expanding, from Hastings Contemporary, De La Warr Pavilion and Towner Eastbourne along the East Coast, to Pallant House in Chichester in the West. Not to forget the impressive work by the Charleston Trust in both Firle and Lewes, Ditchling Museum and others. We love visiting these venues, and it’s given us the opportunity to learn more about the culture and history of the county as a whole.
Why did you start The Adelaide Salon?
It saddened us that Brighton, this great place to live, is experiencing such a clear and ever-increasing existential crisis in the visual arts sector. There are so many talented creative people who live here, but artists, unfortunately, have very few credible gallery spaces to show their works, aside from the many commercial galleries. Phoenix Art Space and the Artists Open Houses festival have become the main outlets for contemporary visual artists. AOH reflects a wide spectrum of creative talent, and is hugely successful, showing works by over a 1000 artists throughout the city and beyond, drawing tens of thousands of culture-loving visitors to the city. Funnily enough, AOH was created in the first place, many decades ago, to help artists in times like these. Sadly it remains under-appreciated by the Council and other arts institutions.
Tell us more about what you two are doing with the salon.
We spoke with other like-minded souls, including some well-established, influential creative talents who live here. Many of these artists work in London and internationally, but had not previously significantly engaged with the local arts scene. To redress the balance, we decided to create The Adelaide Salon, a 21st-century incarnation of the Paris salons of the 17th century, in our Regency home in Adelaide Square. This encompasses art, digital art, sculpture, performance art, design, art films, shorts, documentary films, movies, experimental music, literature, and poetry. A space for connecting the area’s creative communities, but also including our wider arts connections in London and abroad. A forum for critique, and philosophical debate, acting as a ‘provocateur’ in the arts scene, here and beyond. We launched last year during AOH, featuring Paulina’s artwork, performance art, and numerous talks. Since then, we have hosted numerous salons and we also created a 24-hour live performance art event in central Brighton in December, in a shop front on New Road. That was an experience! There’ll be much more to follow.
Do you find Sussex/Brighton an inspiring place to work?
Absolutely. We love engaging with creative people across the county, and formulating ideas for our salons and future cultural events.
What’s your favourite Sussex pub and restaurant?
We don’t have to travel far from our Hove home: The Well has recently opened in Palmeira Square, offering great craft beer and natural wine. It’s become our new local. Not far away is the Wild Flor restaurant, which serves European cuisine and fine wine. You can read about it in the Michelin Guide!
What was your favourite gig last year?
The Smile at the Brighton Centre last March… exquisite! Which artwork would you hang from your desert-island palm tree? It would have to be a big tree… for a piece by Anselm Kiefer.
When did you last swim in the sea or climb to the top of a Down?
We last had a sea swim in September, and we’re planning on the next one in April. We are in awe of Brighton’s all- year-round swimmers, and aspire to build up to doing that ourselves. We regularly walk along the Downs and love to have a cheeky overnight stay at the Truleigh Hill Hostel on the South Downs Way, north of Shoreham.
Tell us a Sussex secret.
It’s probably not that much of a secret, but everyone should know about The Catalyst Club, hosted by David Bramwell… the man’s a genius.
Follow Pascal and Paulina on Instagram @theadelaidesalon