Sandown Tide Turners

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Sandown Tide Turners We are Sandown’s Tide Turners. As one of 15 finalists for UK Town of Culture 2028, we're planning a major arts and science festival.

From crumbling dereliction to UNESCO beauty, join our bid to win £3M and shape the future of our coastal town.

15/10/2026

It's time to turn the tide 🤞

If you had £3 million to transform Sandown, where would you start?Next Wednesday 21st October, we want to hear your answ...
14/10/2026

If you had £3 million to transform Sandown, where would you start?

Next Wednesday 21st October, we want to hear your answers.

Drop into the Trouville Hotel between 10am and 3pm for the free half-term Sandown Town of Culture Day, packed with family entertainment, hands-on discovery and the chance to shape our final bid.

In partnership with Creative Island’s CAN YOU HEAR US?, we are bringing together the artists and pioneers who make this town tick.

Shademakers UK is hosting drumming workshops, dance performances, film screenings and tiger stories.

The Common Space is setting up 'Discovery Bay', a completely hands-on pop-up natural history museum where you can pick up 100-million-year-old fossils, bones and skulls, or meet local mini-beasts under a giant micro-eye microscope.

You can also try origami dream-folding with artists Laura Hathaway. Artist and Sue Paraskeva, get stuck into creative activities with Sandown's own GRAFT studios IOW and catch a wild food foraging performance from the Somewhen Survival Society.

As one of just 15 finalists out of nearly 400 towns across the UK, our final bid goes in on 30th November. This is your opportunity to tell us what you want to see, hear and experience across the town, including your thoughts on our 2028 Tide Turner Festival.

Come get inspired, have your say and help us Turn the Tide.

"Years of neglect have seen the once thriving tourist hotspot fall into disrepair, with the derelict hotels along the to...
14/10/2026

"Years of neglect have seen the once thriving tourist hotspot fall into disrepair, with the derelict hotels along the town's seafront becoming a constant target of vandalism."

"But locals have told me that winning the Town of Culture competition is the catalyst for change that Sandown needs," explains BBC reporter Tiffany Rowlands.

Read how Sandown's Tide Turners described our shunderful town to BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw80zyzl4979o

We have a genuine challenge for anyone still leaving 'Universal Sandown Comments' on our posts:👉 Give us one good reason...
12/10/2026

We have a genuine challenge for anyone still leaving 'Universal Sandown Comments' on our posts:

👉 Give us one good reason why Sandown should not receive £3 million of investment and national recognition. Tell us (exactly) how this funding would not benefit our town and the entire Island.

We’ll wait.

And while you think about it, take a look at the attached Sandown Town of Culture Map. This is our blueprint for reviving Sandown and future-proofing our economy.

Launching in 2028, our Tide Turner Festival will bring life across four thematic zones.

We will unearth our 'Origin' by exploring everything from dinosaur footprints and Charles Darwin's momentous writings, to the manufacture of habitat-creating vertipools.

We will spark 'Curiosity' by using science and art to explore nature and imagination.

We will inspire 'Wonder' by recognising our deep carnival heritage and celebrating diverse community voices.

Finally, through 'Adaptation', we will engineer recovery through creativity, featuring many innovative partnerships.

If you are ready to fight for this future, share our map and help us Turn the Tide.

Map Illustration: Sarah Redrup

Last week we talked about the 'Universal Sandown Comment', the familiar, cynical script we hear from the keyboard warrio...
09/10/2026

Last week we talked about the 'Universal Sandown Comment', the familiar, cynical script we hear from the keyboard warriors.

How do we rewrite that script?

Perhaps with a 'Universal Sandown Solidarity'.

Sandown won't become a cultural place just because it wins a title. It already is one. It is being made and remade every day through its relationships, between neighbours, communities, streets, generations, habitats, times and tides.

Town of Culture isn't simply about bringing more culture to our town. It is an opportunity to put more energy into these relationships, to invest more of ourselves and to help Sandown make more of Sandown. Universal Sandown Solidarity is the name we give to that process.

Solidarity begins with a simple recognition: none of us makes a town alone. We inherit things we did not create, from the built and natural environments to our shared memories, problems and possibilities. We inherit a town already in progress.

Together, we make Sandown from humans, buildings, organisations, landscapes, seascapes and nature, forming one co-creating whole.

The deepest legacy of Town of Culture will not be what is left behind when the programme finishes. It will be what has become possible because it happened.

Tide Turners will leave this town richer in possibility than we found it.

Meet Teresa Grimaldi Artist 🍦Born on the Isle of Wight into a family of ice cream vendors, she is now an artist, puppete...
07/10/2026

Meet Teresa Grimaldi Artist 🍦

Born on the Isle of Wight into a family of ice cream vendors, she is now an artist, puppeteer and a vital voice in our UK Town of Culture 2028 campaign.

For Teresa, Sandown is an endless treasure box of inspiration and a deep link to her own heritage. Armed with degrees in Theatre Design, Puppetry and Visual Performance, she takes the history of this town and physically brings it back to the streets.

Her work is truly rooted in the place we call home. She has recreated her family’s old Battery Gardens ice cream kiosk entirely out of cardboard and brought a bonkers boat of laughing Snark-inspired characters directly to the High Street.

“Placing site-specific work directly back into Sandown feels essential," Teresa explains. "It’s a way of pulling at the threads of local folklore like the Sandown Clown and revealing and reviving the many hidden seams of rich culture.”

We talk a lot about the untold stories of this town. Teresa is the one actively pulling the threads to reveal them.

She is a true Tide Turner.

🤡 Important Public Announcement 🤡We have received an official statement of endorsement for Sandown’s UK Town of Culture ...
06/10/2026

🤡 Important Public Announcement 🤡

We have received an official statement of endorsement for Sandown’s UK Town of Culture 2028 bid from one of the town's most elusive residents.

'All Colours Sam', more commonly known as the Sandown Clown, has officially broken his silence to back the Tide Turners.

With over fifty years of experience in local folklore, Sam brings a highly unique CV to the campaign. First encountered by two children near Sandown Airport in May 1973 and later documented in a 1978 British UFO Research Association report, his story has since become a global phenomenon.

Addressing the town today, Sam was clear on why he has chosen this exact moment to step back into the public eye.

"For over half a century I have existed on the fringes of Sandown, woven into its myths and mysteries," he stated. "I have watched this community weather storms and I have seen the untold stories waiting just beneath the surface. Sandown is a place of profound imagination."

He added: "If this town is to be named UK Town of Culture, I would be deeply honoured to step forward as your official UK Clown of Culture. We are a town of all colours, embracing the brilliant, the bold and unexplained. It is time to share that with the world."

Sam is officially a Tide Turner. Are you?

© Credit: This imposing sculpture has been created by David Jones, a Lecturer of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, and his colleague, Natalia.

What happens if our shunderful town wins UK Town of Culture?It means real change.Launching in early 2028, our plans are ...
05/10/2026

What happens if our shunderful town wins UK Town of Culture?

It means real change.

Launching in early 2028, our plans are built to bring Sandown’s potential to life and give the local economy a (serious) kickstart.

We’ll be bringing hands-on science and performance to the streets, alongside a massive community-driven Tide Turner Festival exploring our past, present and future.

Plus a few absolute wonders. Including a landmark 'Sandown Sirens' installation on our shore, by the renowned sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor (concept pictured).

As Darwin wrote: “From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful are being evolved.”

Follow our application journey and help Sandown Turn the Tide.

If you’ve walked around Sandown recently, you probably noticed our walls have something to say.From Wet Leg’s Rhian Teas...
02/10/2026

If you’ve walked around Sandown recently, you probably noticed our walls have something to say.

From Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale sporting an "I

And now to save our top fans a bit of time...“Town of Culture?! Have you actually BEEN to Sandown lately? It’s a rundown...
01/10/2026

And now to save our top fans a bit of time...

“Town of Culture?! Have you actually BEEN to Sandown lately? It’s a rundown dump/sh*thole/crackhead-infested burnt-out boarded-up village with empty shops, derelict hotels and a rubbish High Street. Culture?! What culture? Unless you mean the stuff growing on yoghurt / in bins / drugs / drunks. It used to be lovely when I was a kid. What it really needs is a bulldozer. 🤬”

For the duration of this campaign, anyone feeling the need to make these observations is welcome to simply type:

👉 “Universal Sandown Comment.”

It will save you time and effort. You’re welcome.

The very fact that this story has become so (brutally) familiar is the reason why our Town of Culture bid matters.

We are fighting for the future of Sandown.

Address

105 High Street
Sandown
PO368AF

Opening Hours

Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm

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