The Ear of the Sea, Holme Beach installation (2024)
The Ear of the Sea at Holme Beach, was a commission by Ground Work Gallery. I curated workshops for the 24 artists in resident of the Ground Up 2024, programme. Five artists were involved Jane Scobie, Sophie Maritt, Kathryn Parsons, Heidi McEvoy-Swift, Caroline Chouler-Tissier. We each explored different approaches to the shore-line environment in the context of coastal flooding and erosion and the proposed Wash Barrage.
I presented The Ear of the Sea sculpture, Sea Wall, a participatory installation and a group reading of my spoken word piece Strandline Deposition. The Ear of the Sea is made from willow covered in fabric printed with microscopy of mussel, starfish, barnacle and horn wrack, it hovers over a deckchair printed with a sea urchin design. Audiences are invited to sit and speculate what the sea might whisper to them: “retreat”, “water, motion, time ebb”, “the sea wind speaks in sensations on my skin, we move together, no words”, “expand the salt marsh”.
Sea Wall, a 10m long wall built between 2 flags by participants using loaf tins, a metaphor for the failed sea defences found all along the North Norfolk Coast. The work questions whether building ever higher defences is the answer, if living behind a sea wall something we want and if we can we find alternative ways to live with the sea and the creatures that inhabit it.
To round off the workshop we had a shared reading of my poem Strandline Deposition.