Members of the public take over Brighton Museum and Art Gallery for new exhibition From Downs To Sea

Might we be seeing the disappearance of elites picking and choosing what the public gets to view in galleries and museums?

No, thinks Helen Grundy, creative programme manager for Royal Pavilion and Museums.

“This is the first time so much control has been handed over,” she says of From Downs To Sea, a new exhibition of paintings, photographs and sculptures opening in the three-room gallery located in Pavilion Gardens.

“It’s a different process and it’s important we bring in lots of different voices. But one of those important voices is still the well-informed specialist curator.

“It’s just we are interested in bringing in other voices, particularly in the interpretation of work.”

Which is to say, “The way we present the work in galleries, how it is shown and what is said about it”.

So a group of nine residents worked for a year with a team from the gallery and picked 26 artworks to tell a collective and personal story of living between the Downs and the sea.

“They wanted to produce an exhibition that talked about their daily lives and their experience being on the edge of an urban environment, surrounded on one side by the Downs and one side by the sea – a sea for industry and a sea for pleasure.”

Residents answered a call-out for interested parties to take part programming an exhibition from start to finish in the city’s most prominent gallery space.

For Adam Pride, 58, an electrical engineer, the exhibition was an opportunity to get involved in the art world. He is interested in art and paints a little.

“Brighton and Hove council has thousands of paintings but they are not available to the public – they don’t have room to put them all on display. Having an opportunity to tap into all this art owned by the public was fantastic because you don’t get to see any of this stuff normally. Every single painting on show I’d never seen before.

“It was the first time I had even looked at the Arts Council collection. I might have seen a painting or two in exhibitions before but I don’t remember. It was quite an eye-opener.”

He admits debating what they wanted did get a bit stressful.

“I picked David Redfern’s Number Nine Bus. That was one of mine. I had another 38 selections hit the cutting room floor.”

Saskia Wesnigk, 55, a translator, adult education teacher and member of Portslade Arts And Crafts Group, agrees.

“It was hard in group to reduce them to something we could all agree on. We had hundred of pictures to begin with. Then the Arts Council said you can’t have those because they were elsewhere. Sometimes the artist’s intention was different to ours or the pieces were too big.

“But it was a beautiful and funny compromise.”

Wesnigk is involved in the arts but has never put a show together.

“It was a fantastic opportunity to have a role choosing works of art by famous artists.

“The exhibition helps to tell the story of our home.”

After a year of monthly meetings, the group was whittled down to nine people, who visited the V&A museum to see how a major institution goes about programming exhibitions.

“The decisions about what to include were made democratically,” says Grundy.

“Initially they all chose ten or 12 pieces, giving us a shortlist of work far greater than could fit in the exhibition. So they voted within the group as to which pieces would be included and which wouldn’t.”

All the art is loaned from the publicly-owned Arts Council collection.

Susan Eskdale, Brighton and Hove Council community engagement and volunteer development officer, says we all own the collection but rarely have access to it.

“Generally it is used by curators, gallerists and museums for exhibitions they put on. This is part of the Select Scheme, which is the Arts Council’s project to encourage communities to work with the Arts Council’s collection. We want to give them the power.”

The gallery has first-rate works by Peter Doig and Mark Neville responding to the room’s rural theme. Edward Burra’s Winter is a coup, and there are giant works of the cliffs near Birling Gap by Jem Southam (pictured above right). Also on display are an evocative seascape by the painter more famous for his stick men in smoggy industrial cities, LS Lowry, as well as work by artists with local connections, Laetitia Yhap and Jeffrey Camp.

“The curators wanted to create an exhibition people could respond to emotionally and that people would feel comfortable and at ease in. They chose work they thought people would find it easy to see the stories and ideas in,” says Grundy.

“Burra’s Winter is a scene of men working in snow. Dot, one of the group members, talked about how it reminds her of the year her son was born, when there were six weeks of solid snow.”

The labels have Art Council explanations next to residents’ anecdotes and explanations.

“This particular show has these personal stories. Visitors who find painting shows alienating or difficult to find a way into will find it easier to relate to these pictures.”

Grundy believes too many people find galleries daunting.

“Sometimes people feel they don’t have a postgraduate degree, therefore they can’t possibly engage.

“The group made films with members talking about work in the exhibition, so even people who don’t like going into galleries and having to read anything can watch the films and look at the pictures.”

• From Downs To Sea - A Slice Of Life is at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, in Pavilion Gardens, from Saturday, April 5, to Sunday, June 15. Tuesday to Sunday (and bank holidays) 10am to 5pm, free. Call 03000 290900.