Listening. A conversation.
Residency365 is a collaborative partnership with Nicole Zaaroura. Our work took us to France last year, a commission for the gallery Espace36 and the Notre Dame cathedral, St Omer. With a brief of connecting with landscape, place and heritage we set out to explore. It was not long before we found the waterways.
St Omer has a series of hand dug water ways as well as a river. Beginning in the town we were drawn out by the river, back up to the Channel and across to Hastings, connecting us back to our starting point. This seemed fitting. Collecting water along our route we spent time walking, listening, watching.
A series of site responsive, temporal interventions, this particular piece connects me here because of the river. Water collected was, with other materials local to the region, placed into glasses and made into bodies of their own. Tall, willowy fragile bodies. Paths were drawn with them through the gallery space. In the cathedral, smaller towers were included in a further installation, replacing missing columns in the gothic stone work.
During our research we became particularly interested in the point at which freshwater and sea water meet. What becomes brackish water is especially abundant in life, a particularly unique ecosystem.
Residency365 will return to St Leonards for Coastal Currents arts festival in September/October.
