Mariluz Beltran de Guevara is the Conservation of Books Subject Leader at West Dean College. She joined the College in 2017 after many years at the British Library where she held the post of Parchment and Vellum Specialist (2007-2010) and Conservation Team Leader (2003-2007; 2010-2015) and Collection Care Monitoring Conservator (2015-2017).

Mariluz is a West Dean College alumnus, having graduated from the Postgraduate Programme in 1997. Following an internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum she worked at the Dundee University Conservation Unit before joining the British Library in 2001.

Under her expert tutorage, the students at West Dean have the unique opportunity to work with material from the Edward James Archive - treating fragile object, preparing material for international exhibitions, improving storage, and getting involved with various preventative conservation projects. The students are currently assessing and treating material from the Archive as part of the forthcoming Leonora Carrington: Magical Tales exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.

Eva Rothschild is one of the leading sculptors of her generation and has gained extensive international recognition for her work. Her practice is informed by an ongoing interest in the meeting points between spirituality, power, visual perception and the nature of materiality.

In 2016, Rothschild won a commission to work with the the West Dean Tapestry Studio to create a new hand-woven tapestry. The commission, coordinated by Master Weaver, Philip Sanderson, has given Rothschild the opportunity to learn the principles of tapestry weaving with expert guidance in the professional studio. Rothschild's final design, informed by her time in the studio, was woven by Sanderson and the Studio's Weaving Assistant, Eleanor Rudd.

The tapestry, entitled Thefallowfield has grown organically out of conversations about the weaving process and the final work subverts traditional methods - drawing out the unique quality of the artist's and weaver's own creative decision making processes. The final work is a manifestation of a process of translation, first by Rothschild as she worked her new knowledge of the weaving into a conceptual design that both encapsulated and extended her existing practice. Then by the professional Weavers who have translated the artist's vision into an outstanding work that brings together the complexities of two artistic disciplines.

Thefallowfield will be on exhibition at Modern Art, London, from 21 March - 28 April.

Image: Eva Rothschild Thefallowfield (2018) Installation view at Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London. Photo © Sophie Mutevelian

Caroline Achaintre was artist-in-residence at West Dean College in November 2017. Organised in collaboration with the De Le Warr Pavilion, the residency led to the creation of a new series of ceramic works made specifically for Achaintre's solo exhibition Fantomas now on exhibition at the DLWP.

Caroline's work evokes the primitive and the carnivalesque, the animistic and the Surreal. The works are characterful and, exhibited as 'habitats', emphasise the animated relationship that builds up between them - their form, colour, texture, and position. The masks call to mind the power instilled in an object in rituals ad ceremonies. The title of the DLWP exhibition refers to the mask worn by the shape-shifting French criminal Fantômas, invented by writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre in 1911. In the 1960s, a TV adaptation of the novel was made, in which Fantômas' face was hidden by a rigid-looking blue mask. For Achaintre, this mask is a place where fantasy and reality can exist at the same time.

Image: Caroline Achaintre Fantômas at the De La Warr Pavilion (2018). Photo: Rob Harris

Leonora Carrington OBE (1917-2011) was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Leonora Carrington was also a founding member of the Women's Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s. Carrington was a close friend of College founder, Edward James. The two regularly corresponded and dined together in Mexico, and James was an enthusiastic supporter and patron of her work. Artwork and archival material is still held at the College and can regularly be seen on loan at exhibitions around the world.

Joanna Moorhead is a journalist and author; she writes for The Guardian, The Observer, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, mostly about family life and the arts. Her book 'The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington' was published by Virago in 2017, and is a memoir about the life of her father's cousin Leonora Carrington, and Joanna's unlikely friendship with her in the years leading up to Carrington's death in 2011. In 2010, Joanna co-curated an exhibition of the work of Leonora Carrington at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. She lives in London, and teaches writing courses at West Dean.