Time Space Residency at METAL, Southend

On Wednesday morning(18th April) I set off on the train from Chalkwell to Tibury Town in order to try out a run on the section of the north side of the Thames Estuary, between Tibury Docks and the London Gateway (super) Port, as planned. I left a little later than anticipated due to a wasp deciding to take refuge inside my room as I was getting ready. (I have a phobia of wasps due to a childhood incident so waiting for it to fly out of the open window again somewhat delayed me). I had wanted a fairly early start, due to the warm weather and I was concerned as I was dressing and packing my gadgets and running backpack, that I would be well-prepared for the heat, with enough fluid to keep me hydrated for the duration of the run. Luckily I had brought enough running clothing with me for all weathers so my knee-length leggings, t-shirt and light windproof sleeveless jacket would keep me relatively cool. However, I had neither sunglasses, nor sunscreen, nor hat, so I decided to fashion a makeshift one with an extra pair of running shorts, which I put over my head and tied at the back, bandana style- I’m sure it fooled no-one and still looked like a pair of shorts over my head, but who cares? Sun protection was more important.

Arriving at Tilbury Town station, the signpost to the ferry port indicated a left turn. It was a mile’s walk down a dusty industrial road before I reached the various ports. I passed an entrance to port services, where there were shipping containers stacked up five high, then an imposing port police station, before passing the cruises docks and finally reaching the ferry port at the end. I found a spot looking over the river wall towards Gravesend to sort out and activate my various means of recording the run. These included my mobile phone with an active OS map and the tracking app, which was held in a see-thru pouch on my left forearm; my old mobile phone with an app that would allow me to take a succession of photographs automatically at regular intervals inside a similar pouch on my chest; a sound recording device inside my right pocket with an external mic clipped to my lapel; and finally my Garmin GPS watch that would allow me to record a back-up track of my route.

The sun was beating down quite strongly now and I knew this was not going to be an easy run, but I felt refreshed and prepared for the task ahead. As the ferry set off for Gravesend in the distance, I climbed down some metal steps to began my run along the inside of the river wall. It took a while to settle into a slow rhythm of slow running, passing Tilbury Fort, a riverside fort built to protect London’s seaward approach from the 16th century through to the Second World War, now maintained by English Heritage. This first section followed the Thames Estuary official footpath which allowed me to continue along the inside of the river wall close to the edge of the river, past some disused sewage works before continuing along the wall next to more open, rugged  green space, currently being developed as a nature reserve. There was a fantastic vista of the open countryside with the widening river beside it, which also encompassed a continuous stretch of the North Kent bank on the south side. It was a straight forward path, well marked and well-maintained. There were a few walkers about, but less than I had feared on such a warm day; for much of the time I was on my own and could indulge in the solitary experience of the run and the environment around me.

I passed a disused water tower, just beyond Coalhouse Point on the approach to Coalhouse Fort, near East Tilbury, a Victorial coastal defence built in the 1860s, where I veared left and continued on my way along the nearest path to river on the other side of a small moat. This is where the official Thames Estuary Path diverges inland towards East Tilbury and Standford-le-Hope. I wanted to continue close to the river, so continued straight ahead. Luckily there was smaller public footpath through some long grasses of a nature habitat, where I had to be mindful to not stray from the path and disturb nesting wildlife. This was a slightly wilder path, away from anyone and I eagerly ventured on to see where it would take me. My previous research on the OS map had indicated that this path would continue by the river and eventually lead to the Thameside Nature Park and Visitor Centre. However, I’m not sure what happened: the path became more indiscernible and I found myself running on an obscure terrain of dried mud that was clearly a clearance site and work in process. By this time I had lost sight of the original footpath (but not the river) and so I continued on my way. If anyone were to stop me I would explain that I had lost my way, which I had….

I’m still on a mission to catch up with my blog posts before it becomes an impossible task. The difficulty is that I am aware that time is moving on and there is still so much I want to do. I often find myself working on into the evening and then feeling too tired to start writing anything that would make much sense. If I’ve been running in the day, I usually feel pretty exhausted by the evening.

Monday was a fairly quiet day trying to catch up on things and continuing the large map-drawing plan I’ve been making. I’ve been wanting to make some contact with some local running groups and sent an email to the Leigh on Sea Striders to ask if I could join them on some training runs. I didn’t expect to receive a reply so quickly and found myself at the back of Chalkwell Rail Station at 7.40pm, looking for a group who looked like a group of runners. I was a little nervous, as I’m not used to running with a group, preferring instead the solitary experience, which I find allows me better mental headspace. However, everyone was very welcoming and friendly and after signing on a register as a guest, we were off for a 4 mile or so jaunt along the Grand Parade and up some slopes, past Leigh Station and to the top of Belton Way, where it meets Leigh’s Marine Parade for a loop back through the town to where we had started. It was an exhilarating run in the approaching darkness at a slightly faster pace than I’ve been used to recently and I was glad that I had taken the plunge to join the group. Unfortunately I can’t make the remaining meetings this week, but hope to join the group again next Monday evening.

Tuesday was spent planning my next reconnaissance run along the estuary. I was intrigued by a path that could take me close to the edge of the river, from Tilbury Ferry port to massive London Gateway (Super)Port. The route I worked out would be largely following the Thames Estuary Path, which is a 29 mile (46.6km) footpath through the South Essex Marshes, from Tilbury Town to Leigh-on-Sea. I was not intending to complete the full 29 miles and was looking at a possible 10 mile stretch between the two ports. As I wanted to keep as close to the river as possible, I knew that I would have to divert from the official Thames Estuary Path at some points. A closer examination of the Ordnance Survey map, which I now have access to online and as an app on my phone, revealed that there could be possible connections to other footpaths, closer to the estuary and through Thurrock Thameside Nature Park and Stanford Marshes Nature Reserve, which ends very close to the London Gateway Super Port. My next post will reveal the details of the almost 9 mile run, which I completed yesterday.

‘At Hadleigh there is a ruin of a castle which from its situation is a really fine place – it commands a view of the Kent hills, the Nore and North Foreland & looking many miles to sea’

(letter of 3 July 1814; in R.B. Beckett, ed., John Constable’s Correspondence, II, Ipswich 1964, p.127).  (Source: www.tate.org.uk)

My partner came to visit at the weekend so there was the opportunity to explore the area further outside the focus of the work I’ve been doing.

I’d been wanting to take a walk up to Hadleigh Castle, which has been a very prominent feature in the distance on some of the runs I’ve done. In ruins since at least the 16th century, the castle was doomed to ruin from the start, due its being built on unstable clay. Built in the early 13th century, by Hubert de Brugh, who had been given the land by King John, there were already problems in 1274, when the castle was said to be ‘badly built and decayed’. It was renovated and repaired extensively in the 14th century, during the reign of Edward III, but lack of interest in its upkeep and subsequent land slips led to the movement of the south wall and caused the collapse of most of the north-east tower. It is now an English heritage site that is free to visit.

Hadleigh Castle was the subject of a number of sketches made by Constable, in preparation for a six-foot painting now in the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. The Tate Gallery has a full-size sketch in its collection painted between 1828-9, which can be seen here, along with a summary, display caption and catalogue entry.

After a great late full English breakfast in Leigh on Sea, we wandered through the old town and up beyond the train station, where I had seen there is a footpath that leads to the castle. A bit of confusion over which footpath to take led to a slight detour over Leigh Marine Parade, but was worth it for the view over the Estuary. We managed to find the correct path eventually, that led us across a ridge and some muddy fields and up a hill to the castle. The start of this stretch of good weather and the fact it was the weekend brought out a number of people, so it was difficult to capture an image of the castle without anyone in it, but it’s great that this is an open and free space that anyone can enjoy.

We continued up the hill to Hadleigh Farm, a former working country colony established by William Booth and run by the Salvation Army. The scheme offered training and employment to ‘disadvantaged’ people: “to give employment (and food and lodgings in return for his labour) to any man who is willing to work, irrespective of nationality or creed.”  The estate was involved in looking after refugees and those fleeing persecution prior to the outbreak of WWII. Today it continues to be a working farm with a Rare Breed Centre and Tea Room run by the Salvation Army and since 1990 operates as The Hadleigh Training Centre ‘work[ing] with local authorities to train people with special educational needs in contemporary subjects such as IT skills, carpentry, and life skills’. (Source: https://www.hadleighfarm.org.uk)

A welcome cup of tea and ice-cream at the Tea Room and a look at the animals at the Rare Breed Centre and we continued on our way to find the path back down that would lead us across the railway crossing and onto the footpath from Benfleet, opposite Two Tree island, that would lead us back to Leigh and then to Chalkwell Hall. The descent was a beautiful excursion across a typical English landscape and vista of green fields and blossoming trees.

After a little confusion, we found the field we should cross to get to the railway crossing. Despite the warm, sunny weather it remained waterlogged in large patches and although we managed to avoid the worst of it, we couldn’t avoid the huge pool immediately in front of the crossing. I managed to persuade my partner to give me a ‘piggy back’ across, as I’m not tall and he was already up to his knees in water. It was worth it to show him the route back along the path, which I had previously encountered on some training and reconnaissance runs. It was still a few miles before we reached Leigh, where we stopped for a much needed drink at the Mayflower pub and a couple more to get back to Chalkwell Hall. In all, we worked out we must have walked about 8 miles and that was after me doing a 6 mile run in the morning beforehand! The excursion was well-rewarded by a fantastic Italian evening meal at La Sirena in Leigh.

Most of what I’ve been doing during this second stage of the residency has been to work further on a planning a viable route (or routes) to run. I’m also continuing my exploration of the area this side of the river. When I started thinking about this I was pretty convinced that as the river widens, I would follow it along the south side, as I was aware of the obstructions that the large docks on the north side would cause. Now, I’m not so sure; these are part of the working river and even if I can’t get through them, getting round them will be an acknowledgment of their presence. There is alot of controversy surrounding their development as ‘super ports’, in terms of jobs and also the environment. They have been responsible for dredging the riverbed to make it deeper to encompass ever larger sea vessels and this has disturbed much of the river’s natural eco-system; at the same time they have brought wildlife to the area and have worked on returning former rubbish dumps and brownfield sites back to nature.

There are of course other ‘obstacles’ to get round on the south side of the river and I’m particularly aware of the looming presence of the former oil-fired power station on the Isle of Grain, which I can see from my window. I’m looking forward to spending some time on that side at the weekend. I’m attending some talks and a couple of night walks organised by the Inspiral London group of artists, who have devised a new walking route for experiencing London and its surrounds, spiralling out from the centre. They are launching the Inspiral Trail map tomorrow, Thursday 19th April at The Place, near Kings Cross. The event also also marks a series of night walks, talks and workshops over the weekend in Gravesend , Kings Cross and Medway. I’m particularly excited about taking the ferry from Tibury to Gravesend on Friday evening.

I’ve been continuing to work on the large map I have installed in my room/workspace. It’s a slow process and I can only do it for so long before the light goes. At the moment, I’m mainly filling in the trajectory of the river and connecting waterways in pale-blue coloured pencil. I will then start adding annotations relating to run, mainly marking out  daily route sections (when I’ve worked out what they are) and places I’ve identified as possible overnight stays. I’ve already started to work this out in my notebook, with reference to the Thames Path route on the National Trails website. It’s a really useful resource as it’s completely up to date and includes the latest diversions and changes to the route. There’s also a distance calculator that allows you to plot your own route in relation to the official Thames Path and you can also select for it to local places to stay en route- very helpful. This mapwork is a much bigger task than I anticipated and I’m not sure I will have completed it by the end of my stay here, but I will have got alot further with it and I’ll have better sense of what I’m letting myself in for, than if I had not had this opportunity of consolidated time. Luckily it will be a good while before I actually embark on this journey.

There’s been a bit a of a gap since the last post whilst I’ve been settling into a rhythm of working and continuing knowledge of the area. The next few posts will be an attempt to catch up.

I had a day away in Cambridge last Wednesday to attend the conference Debating Nature’s Value, organised by the Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, where I also teach. This was linked to the exhibition Liquid Land, currently on at the Ruskin Gallery, for which my friend and colleague Rosanna Greaves was commissioned to make the film: The Flaming Rage of the Sea , a beautiful and haunting moving image work which explores the constructed and changing landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands.

It was strange to be back in my place of work, after being away for so long and without having to think about teaching or my other duties as MA Course Leader. I hadn’t previously engaged myself particularly with ecological concerns in relation to my artwork, but being based in the Thames Estuary during this residency and having explored and read some more about the immediate area surrounding me, have made me more a-tune to the particularity of this landscape and the factors that have shaped it historically and that continue to shape its future development. Even though the work I am planning is not about environmental concerns as such, they will inevitably be on the periphery. Moving through the landscape as I will be, it will be impossible to ignore what is around me.

The conference was a useful insight into different perspectives on policy regarding the conservation of the natural environment. There were some persuasive arguments put forward in relation to how putting an economic value on different aspects of the natural world in terms of ‘natural capital’ has a function in allowing the opportunity for ecologists to engage policy makers with concerns and decisions regarding ecosystems and sustainability. However, I found it hard to get my head round how you can put a true economic value on things that are not able to be measured reliably in that way. Whether or not the term is a metaphor, as was suggested many times, the idea of quantifying nature in terms of capital and in monetary terms doesn’t sit well with me, despite its apparent usefulness politically. Apart from the fact that the idea of value means so many different things (that don’t come down to measurement in monetary terms) I worry that ‘natural capital’ as a concept could become too much of an ideology that plays into the hands of those in power and who control money, even if part of the argument is that ecologists have speak the same language as them. It’s complicated: ecologists need to be able to communicate with politicians in a way that is persuasive and effective, and so ‘play the game’ as it were, but at the same time it’s a dangerous game to play, especially given how imperfect ‘natural capital’ as a system of measurement is. At the same time, the question of the environment is a pressing one. Surely there are other means of articulating the value of nature that are not just in relation to policy makers, big businesses and ‘natural capital’ as a marketing device.

The philosopher John Foster made sense when he suggested that ‘natural capital’ as a concept misrepresents the way nature matters to human beings. It seems to me that there is more work to be done in directly engaging the wider population with current concerns and with why nature matters. Value, I think lies in the value of education to change public opinion on a wider scale and in enabling public and community engagement in such a way that people feel that they have a voice and can make a difference to what is around them and to what directly affects them.

This post was not intended as as a political statement, but in trying to summarise in some way the content of the conference, politics is going to come into it. I have not come anywhere close to being able to adequately articulate the day’s proceedings but hopefully this post has given a small insight into the concept of ‘natural capital’ and how it is used as a political tool. The conference closed with a screening of Rosy’s film, previously mentioned, which offers an alternative view to a system driven by financial imperatives:

‘Ancestral memory, past traditions as well as the historical resistance to the draining of the Fens are evoked to create a film that speaks of change, migration, imported technologies and the precariousness of a landscape that lie below sea level.’ (Artist’s statement in Liquid Land exhibition pamphlet)

There are many analogies here to the marshlands that surround the Thames Estuary, but it is the particularity of the stilt-walkers that are reawakened in Rosy’s film that stay in my mind and haunt me.

The exhibition Liquid Land was curated by Rosanna Greaves and Harriet Loffler. It brings together a group of artists working with moving image, installation, performance and sculpture ‘whose work considers the complexities of landscape and the environment, explor[ing] the material, economic, ecological and cultural agendas at play when we experience and represent a landscape.’

Artists include: Matthew Cornford and David Cross; Georgie Grace; Rosanna Greaves; Alexandra Hughes; Reece Jones; Lotte Scott; Wilf Speller; Sally Stenton and Judy Nakazato.

The exhibition continues at the Ruskin Gallery, Anglia Ruskin University until Saturday 21st April 2018.