What a Time to be a Lie.
Look the Other Way.
In the shadow of Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station, a family sets up their windbreak shielding themselves from the weather but also obscuring the powerplant from sight. Meanwhile the child runs towards the sea escaping the confines of the group to enjoy the freedom of the beach. This image announces the themes of this project; our ability to look the other way and our blinkered nostalgic views of the seaside. The seaside is a contested space. There are many significant issues that if left unchallenged will result in the beach no longer being a place of freedom for the next generation.
Abandoned.
The recovery and regeneration of many British seaside towns is more akin to a tentative paddle than a robust swim. Without significant support they remain vulnerable. Regeneration programmes do not touch some parts of the community. ‘Abandoned’ ‘Left Behind’ and ‘Precarious’ are now all accepted common seaside descriptors. Who can say why this crutch has been abandoned at the water’s edge – a leap of faith or an admission of defeat?
Let’s see what the day brings.
This image was taken at 8am on Hastings’s seafront as a café owner was opening for the day, setting out deckchairs on the beach. Whether people will come or whether the chairs stay empty remains to be seen. Seaside tourism is precarious and has created a low paid and seasonal job market. A common phrase heard is ‘Lets see what the day brings’ alluding to the unpredictability of running a business by the sea.
Cliftonville beach.
The beach should be an unspoilt, precious, democratic space which we all have a claim to, but this freedom feels precarious. The environmental and economic uncertainty we feel now will significantly affect the next generation. We ignore social, environmental, and economic challenges at their expense.
Bucket.
Traditional bucket and spade shops at seaside resorts still unashamedly display a huge array of plastic beach items. Many, of these are left behind after a day by the sea. Plastics are the largest, most harmful, and most persistent fraction of marine litter, accounting for at least 85 per cent of total marine waste. Plastic pollution in oceans continues to grow sharply with a UN report predicting it could more than double by 2030.
Stay home.
A rather beautiful dress hanging from a rather beautiful window of a faded Decimus Burton designed building in St Leonards on Sea. Both have a nostalgic and timeless elegance that we associate with larger seaside towns. But the dress also serves as a reminder that post pandemic many people stay home more or are trapped in small, rented flats with no outdoor space. The “stay home, stay safe” slogan so often repeated during the pandemic also had sinister undertones. The phrase suggesting a ‘duty’ to stay home; not only “I hope you don’t come to harm” but also “I hope you avoid harming me.”. How quickly we forget the divisive nature of the very recent pandemic.
Fishing
A rather cinematic view behind the scenes of Hastings Fishing Industry, the UKs largest beach-launched fleet. Hastings’ changing political and economic circumstances have led a once thriving industry to the edge of extinction. Many fishermen voted for Brexit, sold on the evocative nostalgia of reclaiming the rights to fish in distant waters. They feel bitterly betrayed by politicians who extolled the benefits of leaving the EU but then failed to deliver on promises made. Hastings’ fishing fleet is not unique in facing being just another nostalgic tourists’ attraction, rather than the vibrant fishing port it has been for centuries.
Bandstand - built 1865.
Seaside towns are defined by a particular brand of nostalgia which can be exclusionary, implicitly racist, and nationalistic. We are enamoured with the idea of an unchanging British seaside but should be more critical of what nostalgia can represent. This complex human emotion has spread more rapidly in the wake of the pandemic. Seaside bandstands are a traditional but problematic colonial symbol of power. Witnessing this group of black women taking up space and enjoying music not usually associated with the bandstand is a rarity but hopefully a sign of change.
Never Stop Dancing.
This photograph was taken from Cliftonville promenade in Margate. I assumed ‘Never Stop Dancing’ referred to one of the nearby boarded up nightclubs. After several months of research, I discovered the message had been blow torched on to the jetty late one night during a 2020 lockdown period. Politicians are now keen that we move on, but it can feel strange or wrong to be nudged to forget something so significant. People need a chance to process and recover the many impacts of the pandemic. I saw this graffiti as a permanent tribute to people’s resilience that will likely be ignored or mistaken for referencing something else.
Southern Waters.
This image was taken late one evening during a heatwave in June 2023. Three boys tentatively contemplating a swim. The water was warm – their reticence maybe due to ongoing terrible sewage pollution along the south coast caused by Southern Water Company practices. Communities are united in their anger and as a result, activism is becoming more organised and more vocal. But after the curtailed freedoms of the pandemic, it seems that young people’s freedoms are being further denied. The water regularly poses a serious risk to health….no longer is a sea swim a carefree pursuit.
Horizon
Whilst the coast provides health benefits, many older people who retire there find themselves removed from family ties and social networks. Young people often move away to find opportunities elsewhere leaving behind an ageing population that must be cared for by already struggling local authorities. Single men who have been moved by councils to cheaper coastal areas are now ageing in these places and are at particular risk of isolation and loneliness with an uncertain future on the horizon.
No Entry
Orford Ness shingle beach is strictly controlled to protect fragile habitats and the public from residual danger due to the site's former military use. This is a natural landscape of great beauty but also of manmade danger. The beach has been returned to ‘nature’ raising questions about who our beaches belong to. This image should cause us to reflect on a future where we cannot swim in the sea or walk on the beach. Our ecologies are rapidly changing, and this should evoke anticipatory nostalgia or a grieving for lost futures. We face a threat so inconceivably vast that it is only on a very small scale that it can seem to mean anything at all.
