Tilbury Trip- Esturay 2016

On Thursday 29th September, I went on a trip to Tilbury for Esturary 2016 which is this art festival on the Esturay in Tilbury. 

Photo used on Estuary 2016, Metal website (photo by Simon Fowler)

"Metal presents, Estuary 2016 Festival, sixteen days of art, literature, music and film curated in response to thespectacular Thames Estuary. A mix of new and existing works pull together powerful themesresonant to the place, its landscape, history and communities. Presented in significant, historicand unusual venues along the 40 miles of Essex and Kent shorelines." (http://www.estuaryfestival.com)

One of the first art piece that I saw was John Akomfrah's film installation called Mnemosyne (2010) which shows many different archival material to retell the experiences of postwar immigrants to the UK. The archival images shows how the UK became more multicultural. 

A clip filmed by me from John Akomfrah's film Mnemosyne

A clip filmed by me from John Akomfrah's film Mnemosyne

I many chose to film some of this film because I really loved the haunting sounds that the film created as it echo around the decaying building. I'm really interested by sound within a art piece now and I really want to experimenter with sound within my work. To me it the images of this film did not interest me it was the way the background sound that Akomfrah had within his film and how that reacted with the building to make the audiences more immersed within the film. Also the sound brings the outside of the building to become apart of the film itself and I really want to create that type of feeling when I have sound within my art.

The next piece I saw was Adam Chodzko's piece called Ghost (2010-2016). "Ghost is a Kayal; a Sculpture as vessel, coffin, bed, costume and camera rig." It is designed to ferry people to the 'island of the dead', which has a rower at the back and the passenger lay down low and flat in the front. The way the passengers are laying down is like the way a person lays in a coffin, "with their head slightly raised, travelling along the interface between water and sky." The camera is places where there passenger is so it captures the point of view of the passenger which is very interesting through the sound that is captured.

A clip filmed by me of Adam Chodzko film Ghost

The sound that was capture was a mixture of wind and water sounds with similarly to the other piece echoed with the decaying building that it was in. As the videos where shown on these older TVs in different dark, decaying rooms which created a ominous feeling through out the building. The sound and the overall atmosphere of this piece creates the feeling that you are in watery coffin and gives that overall feeling to the audiences that they are apart of the piece.


I then went a listened to a audio piece called Waterborne (2016) by French and Mottershead. Waterborne is a audio piece where you, first before getting the headphones, you have to gave something valuable to you with the people and then you get the headphones. After you get the headphones, you have to look out at the esturay and listen to the piece.

The view that you look at when listening to the piece. (photo taken by me)

"Waterborne describes in poetic detail the course of your body's decay as it traverses time and place, from a canal, via a tidal, river, an esturary and out to sea." (From Estuary 2016 booklet). This piece really interested me through the way the spoken narrative used a first person pro-noun of 'you' making me feel, like it was my body decaying and with the visual of the estuary itself add more to the image of myself decaying. I'm really interested in sound and through the way, I just headphones on with blocked out everything around me and all I could hear was the audio, it consumes you into the piece for 20 minutes and after all you are left with is the images in your head of yourself decaying. 

Next artist that I saw was Louisa Fairclough's piece called The Incidental Musicality of a Chance Encounter (2016). 

Piece by Lousia Fairclough, Photo taken by me

Fairclough's created a sound installation with was accompanied with some painting in the middle on a canvas which were paintings of found things from the Thames. The found objects have something to do with the body, for example (this is from the booklet) a coughed up pellet, a stone that has the appearance of something chewed, a muddied bovine tooth. Fairclough sometimes paired these pieces together to show the resonance and the relationship between things encountered.  Louisa Fairclough uses ground, tidal water, voice and light as material. Her long-term engagement with the River Severn has resulted in a body of work encompassing film loops, field recordings and drawings.

Through painting the found objects on top the clean white canvas, she has created another contrast between the dark and dirty objects and the clean canvas. But contrasting with that through painting the found object so delicate she has elevate the ordinary through cleaning objects that would normally be cover in dirty from the Thames. These make for a very interesting piece.

Photo by Benedict Johnson (from the website)

"The field recording capture the coalescence of events and the incidental musicality of a chance encounter" (from the booklet) I haven't really got much to say about the radioing because I didn't listen to it.


Next artist was Liz Lake, who create these piece all called A River Once Ran Through My Veins (2016).  A fictional installation made from an imagined future where silt has swallowed the Tilbury estuary and icecapsnof polystyrene, islands of Buddleia and colonces of crystallized snails non proliferate. 

This installation has a very interesting look to it because all the pieces are place in a non gallery space, they are on a boat that is attached to a building making for an unusual place for art to be place. With that in mind the piece in this installation sort of blend in with the room because the room has a very decayed, building look to it and the work reflect that making it apart of the space. Also the colours that are within the pieces are similar colours that the room itself making the pieces more within the background.
  

This is reflected within this piece through the way the rusted stand blends in with the dark wooden floors and the cream coloured rolls of marble blends with the wall.


All the pieces where very interesting and show me new way of seeing art through listening. And also how art can reacted with the space that it is in. Also some of the artist link to my style so the whole trip really help me get inspiration for me to follow through into my studio work.