The Setting: Orford Ness is a place with a constantly changing landform anatomy – shifting, drifting, migrating via longshore drift; undergoing a churn of simultaneous loss and creation. As artist-in-residence there during 2019, my creative research explored some of the past, present and future dynamics that are entangled with both natural and social forces of erosion, adaptation and conservation, with a close attention to the interplay between ephemerality and permanence. The sinuous fluidity of the form of the shingle spit of Orford Ness is observable even within our short human time-frames; sea and weather forces act as the major agents of change on this coastal site. In a single generation, major re-shaping and disturbance occurs. Accepting these changes involves more than simply ‘letting-go’. Instead, it is about finding ways to find coherence, and to slipstream, with change itself. Plant-life, water flows, weather patterns, climate changes – all have unpredictable and unmanageable ways of their own.
Sensitive Chaos was an extended artist-residency project with the National Trust in 2019, reflecting on the slow unfolding of the landform, materials, ecologies, and the anchors of identity, or belonging. Through this lens, particular historic structures or buildings are a blur; instead the primary focus is on phenomena of flow, growth and change. Despite the physical ‘heaviness’ of some of the site’s monumental concrete structures, and their historical resonances, the overall human imprint here is relatively light-touch, and will, in time, crumble and dissolve away. Ongoingness and morphogenesis are words I’ve used to describe these processes of shaping, over different scales of time and space. There is no loss, no decay, nor detritus, nor remnant, nor ruin; everything is in process and is a process.
On an early Spring morning walk, I passed by a small concrete bunker-like building and became fascinated by the reflections of the rising sun in the extremely thick toughened-glass windows, degraded by time, the elements and shrapnel impacts. Zooming-in revealed rich layers of textures and patterns – a microcosm echo of some of the maps and aerial photos of this landscape of saltmarsh and shingle. Not fixed in time, but evidencing ongoingness, flow and transformation. Some of the photo series (those titled ‘lethality’) record the external reflections; others (titled ‘vulnerability’) are taken inside the building, with transmitted light. On the horizon in at least one of the images there is the silhouette of the Orford Ness Lighthouse, which is now being undermined by the encroaching sea. Its days are numbered.
My artist residency was linked to the Heritage Futures academic research project. Along with video and installation works, the full set of photographs was exhibited at Orford Ness in 2019, and is titled Lethality and Vulnerability, this being the MOD (Ministry of Defense) name for an experimental programme (involving static RAF aircraft), and also the name of the concrete structure which was used to protect military photographers assigned to record the impact of munitions.
Images from the series are shown below (click to view image at full size / original format).
ABOUT ANTONY LYONS
Antony is an independent artist-researcher working in England and Ireland. Creative works include film, photography, sound-art and installations. With a background in eco/geo-sciences and landscape design, many of his projects are concerned with ecological processes, environmental change and nature-culture relationships. His research and production methods rely on creative fieldwork and geopoetic assemblages of imagery, sculptural materials, archives, field-recordings and conversations – developed in the context of both ‘slow’ and ‘intensive’ artist-residencies. This brings together scenarios of land abandonment, ecological recovery, rising coastal waters and the intentional submergence of lands by constructed dams/reservoirs. Currently Antony is an artist-in-residence in the Elan Valley in Wales – a place with fascinating narratives, weaving together people, water, farming and the natural world.
Website: antonylyons.net
Vimeo: vimeo.com/novadada
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Antony Lyons
