Dear Kathleen, 2025
I wrote a letter to Kathleen Bell, after finding and reading her Study of the Seashore of Walney Island, dated 1929, in Barrow Archives. I was completely captivated by this careful, detailed study and the seaweed samples within it. I made several visits to Walney Island whilst considering what it might mean to re-perform Kathleen’s study of the seashore. On my final visit, I read my letter to Kathleen to the sea. It was a powerful and emotional experience.
This audio/video experiment sources recordings from that day on Walney Island, along with photographs of Kathleen Bell’s study of the seashore.
Sediment, 2023 – 2024
‘Sediment’ is a ‘thinking on the ground’ about sediment transportation on Morecambe Bay. The video emerged at a time of rapid salt marsh and mudflat erosion near the River Keer estuary and is open ended and unresolved, much like the environment itself. ‘Sediment’ is part of a research practice that considers how the more-than-human Morecambe Bay can meaningfully inform conservation, cultural, and social practices in response to climate change.
Tiny Cliffs, 2022
A short experimental iPhone video that plays with scale on eroding mudflats.
Crossings, 2021
‘Crossings’ is an essay film about walking with the tides, marshes, and mudflats near my home on Morecambe Bay during the Covid-19 pandemic. The work explores aspects of time in relation to place, my physical and mental relationship with the environment through walking, and mobile technology.
I shot the film on my iPhone because its portability allowed me to respond intuitively to events taking place in the moment. Recording on such a small mobile device felt quite intimate and, at times, the work started to shift tentatively towards performance.