Coast Commissions

An art project inspired by the Essex Coast as a whole and three new artworks created for particular sites in Maldon, Rochford and Tendring districts. Three artists were selected from the 180 applications received >

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Bettina Furnée: Harwich
Neville Gabie: Rochford District
John Kippin: Essex Coast as a whole
Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich: Maldon District

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Bettina Furnée > Harwich

The Site
LIKE so many thousands of people each year, Bettina Furnée first sighted Harwich on the boat from her native Holland. The port town was her gateway to Britain, the first impression that would fade quickly and to which she now returns.

Founded as a port in the medieval period, Harwich has always stood as a gateway at the heart of Britain's maritime heritage. From the close packed ancient streets of the old town to the planned, neighbouring, Victorian resort of Dovercourt, Harwich represents in microcosm 1000 years of British History.

They may call it Plymouth Rock, but it was from Harwich that the Mayflower first set sail with the founding fathers. At the end of the First World War, the German surface fleet might have scuttled itself in Scapa Flow, but the dreaded U-boats capitulated in Harwich.
And when Hitler came to power the Kinder Transport evacuation of Jewish children from Nazi Germany passed through Harwich. This history and heritage has passed into the architecture of the town. It is still possible to see one of the medieval, man powered, cranes of the old port and the skyline is still dominated by the "Leading" lighthouses that would guide ships into the port before technology made them obsolete.

Perhaps most hauntingly however are the silent, monolithic defences of the port, which, from the medieval period on, have dominated the skyline. First the town walls of king Henry II. Then the Napoleonic redoubt, before the Victorian battery at Beacon Hill metamorphosed into the grey slab gun emplacements of the Second World War. These, like much of the old port of Harwich have now been made redundant. Shipping through Harwich port remains but has changed beyond recognition from years gone by, and the town now looks to new controversial container port facilities planned at Bathside Bay for its future. This history and change, heritage of gateway and port, form the backdrop to Bettina Furnée's Coast commission.

Artist’s Interest
Harwich takes an important place in my life: I arrived in Parkeston Quay in the early 1980's from the Netherlands, and Harwich has been my gateway to and from my homeland ever since. Exploring Dovercourt and Harwich Old Town has revealed a wonderful historic settlement, isolated from the interior, but connected to the sea. I am interested in making a work for Harwich which embodies this outlook, and makes reference to the town's border position and role as an international port. I walked, by recommendation of a passenger on the Harwich train, from Dovercourt to Harwich, past Beacon Hill Fort, along the footpath by the sea. I think that the site for a permanent work could be found somewhere along this route, with the backdrop of the cranes and shipping activities that have shaped Harwich. I learned that the historic lighthouses worked by leading ships in on the aligned beams of the High and Low lighthouses. This seems a visual feature that might translate well.

I envisage this work to feature text, as many of my works do. I collaborate with writers and poets or local sources and communities to find text that captures ideas associated with a site or situation. For instance, this text is produced by Tony Mitton, poet, in response to the Stena HSS Discovery, and my experience and ideas surrounding immigration.

Secret passage-plain sailing
Easy rider-foreign body
Human traffic-staying afloat
Cross channel-channel tunnel
National front-liquid border
Personal gain-gain entry
Marine barrier-threshold fear
Shipping forecast-passing ships
Floating voter-treasure island
Fair trade-rough trade
Fluid currency-money box
Body snatcher-illegal immigrant
Current issues-sea change

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Neville Gabie > Rochford District

The Site
The uniqueness of the Rochford District coastline is its invisibility due to coastal marshes and the limited public access to Foulness Island, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence. A continuous coastal footpath runs around the Rochford peninsula, following otherwise inaccessible riverbanks and creeks, which divide this marshy area into several islands. A footpath network connects several villages and has been chosen as an extended linear site for the artist. These villages will be integral to the commission, their communities involved in its development.

Artist’s Interest
“The land at the edge of the sea marks a point of arrival and departure. It has a political as well as a physical significance which exists in a constant, unflinching state of transition. Part of an unstoppable process of erosion, slippage and reclamation, Rochford, with its numerous islands, mud flats and estuaries, is gateway to the Thames and London. A large part of the area is also an inaccessible MOD Firing range, which makes this commission a unique challenge.” Neville Gabie

Artist’s Background
A collaborative working practice is integral to Neville Gabie’s approach. Using specific sites as his starting point, his work evolves through dynamic relationships with the people and histories of a given location. The artist’s work is a tool for exploring or unpicking landscapes. Its form is very much determined by a particular context and its people and the end product varies, it is often a mix of temporary installations, photography and publications.

Neville Gabie’s most recent project is ‘Further up in the Air’, a collaborative initiative with artist Leo Fitzmaurice. As artists and co-curators of the project they invited other artists to live and work in an inhabited tower block due for demolition in Liverpool.
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John Kippin > Essex Coastline

The Site
John Kippin used the Essex Coast in its entirety as a starting point for his new artwork. Evidence of the coast's military past and present is visible throughout its length, from the forbidden territory of the MoD weapons testing base at Foulness Island to the dramatic Martello towers that punctuate the coast line's profile.

Artist’s Interest
Reflecting an ongoing preoccupation in his own work, John Kippin was interested in the coast's military usage and the landmarks that remain. The artist proposed using photography to capture and evoke the character
of the Essex Coast. He planed for the images created to be experienced both individually and as a whole, with reference to one another. "I am thinking of constructing a series of images about various aspects of the coast. These could be: the approaches to the area, or the footpaths, or the buildings, or the military training, or military or other specific landscapes. I want to create something that allows a visual narrative to act in a fluid way representing the coast." John Kippin

Artist’s Background
John Kippin has worked on numerous major public art projects, most frequently combining photography with forms of mass communication such as billboards, websites, publications and print. Currently reader in Photography and Digital Imaging at the University of Sunderland, his recent exhibitions/commissions include: 'Eye to the Horizon', Napier University (2002), 'Billboards in Leamington Spa and Birmingham Stations', Compton Verney (2002) and 'SSSI Greenham Common', The Imperial War Museum, London (2001).
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Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich > Maldon District

The Site
The summer of 2004 saw the launch of an independent radio station from a mirrored yacht, sat on mud flats between a decommissioned nuclear power station and one of the first Christian chapels in the UK. To complete
their Coast Commission Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich worked closely with the rural, isolated landscape of the Dengie Peninsula which sits between the rivers Blackwater and Crouch on the Essex coastline. Defining the north eastern corner of the peninsula are two contrasting monuments: the ancient 7th Century chapel of St Peter's-on-the-Wall and the imposing 40-year-old Bradwell Power Station - closed in 2003 to undergo a 10-year decommissioning programme. Between the two, a long stretch of sea wall runs around the headland, part of a 6 mile circular wall linked to the village of Bradwell-on-Sea. Small communities in the area include Bradwell-on-Sea, East End and the hamlet Bradwell Waterside - with its own quay and yacht marina.

It was this beautiful landscape, rich in imagery and identity that provided the stepping-off point for Zoë and Neil.

Artist’s Interests
"We are currently exploring the notion of borderlines and frontiers within landscape and politics; we are interested in the coastline as a shifting territory holding a crucial position historically and symbolically as the edge or border of a land mass. Within mythology the beach occupies a special position, somewhere between a human world and an unhuman world, a nowhere land claimed by the sea at high tide and the land by low tide. The Essex coast is a very powerful atmospheric
landscape. There is a kind of otherworldliness about the place, perhaps something that comes from reclaimed coastline and endless horizons."
Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich

Artist's Background
Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich have worked together since 1999 on projects. Their work explores the space between real landscape and an imagined location. They aim to transform the perception of a place by creating a new immersive, magical environment or situation. Time spent in a given location is key to their working practice; they seek to absorb nuances of an environment and its people to inform and develop their response to site. Most recently they have been resident at Art and Architecture, Keilder working on 'Fantasy frontier, a friendly border' (2003).

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