Waterfronts

Waterfronts is a series of seven new public artworks curated by Tamsin Dillon. The works are commissioned by England’s Creative Coast in partnership with cultural organisations around the South East coast of the UK and presented from May to November 2021.

Artists Andreas Angelidakis, Mariana Castillo Deball, Holly Hendry, Jasleen Kaur, Katrina Palmer, Pilar Quinteros and Michael Rakowitz have been commissioned to make new site specific public artworks along the coastline of Essex, Kent and East Sussex. Starting from the specific histories of each location artists will make work across a wide range of disciplines including, sculpture, performance, large-scale drawing, sound and video.

The coast of mainland Europe is visible from the coastline of Kent. The political and historical significance of this proximity for both the UK and its European neighbours has been brought into sharp focus as the UK prepares to leave Europe and Brexit reinforces the border and pushes the mainland European continent further away. A growing global refugee crisis has led many displaced people to attempt to cross the Channel and seek refuge in the UK. However, with the enforcement of the border and with new measures in place due to the global pandemic leading to national distancing, the UK is becoming increasingly isolated, inhospitable and closed to immigration.

Coastal erosion due to climate change means that the land itself is undergoing a dramatic change. As cliffs erode and collapse it’s clear that the surrounding waters are encroaching on the land and a transformation is underway. There is a real threat to life, both human and animal, and to biodiversity, with the probability of extinction for many species. We need to develop an understanding of how we can live together in such a constantly shifting world, how we can deal with a collective grief for the loss of a sense of stability, with the prospect of mass unemployment and with a looming economic recession, and how to adapt to living in the midst of global health crises. Waterfronts offers new perspectives on these issues in specific places along the coast. Artists will make works that draw comparisons with the shifting and precarious nature of many social, political, and ecological situations around the world.

A waterfront is a place of uncertainty and precariousness and also of potential. A word often used in the names of luxury river-side or ocean-side developments, a waterfront is enticing as a concept; a place where things can happen undisturbed and rules can go unobserved. A waterfront is an edge, with the vital role of defining the perimeter from one side and a welcome on the horizon from the other. Waterfronts explores this duality through the eyes of seven international artists.

Waterfronts commissions are located in Margate, Folkestone, Hastings, Bexhill-on-Sea, Eastbourne, Gravesend and Southend-on-Sea. The project is delivered by England’s Creative Coast, led by Turner Contemporary in Margate and in partnership with Cement Fields, Creative Folkestone, De La Warr Pavilion, Hastings Contemporary, Metal – Southend-on-Sea, and Towner Eastbourne.