Shifting, fragile and vulnerable: our Living Coast

Living Coast: People, Land, and Sea in Yorkshire’s South Holderness is currently on show in the art gallery in the University of Hull’s Brynmor Jones Library. It is the result of a six-month University eco-arts research project which documents the transient geography and human occupancy of the ever-shifting South Holderness coast.

From farmers to artists, ecologists to historians – interviews with current and past residents from the villages of Easington, Kilnsea and the former community at Spurn have enabled researchers to develop a rich and diverse range of artistic interpretations spanning poetry, performance, film and sound. Working alongside Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the Spurn Bird Observatory, the nature reserve’s wildlife is also at the heart of the exhibition.

Dr Christian Billing, Reader in Drama and Theatre Practice in the University’s School of the Arts, who led the project, said: “Our work aims to highlight the dynamic fragility of the South Holderness landscape, creating arts-based pieces that urge us to see this terrain not as a static backdrop, but as a delicate, ever-evolving ecosystem. 

“Environmental ethicist Bruno Latour reminds us that we humans are not separate from nature; it is not a ‘thing’ we visit occasionally but a web in which we are ineluctably entwined. As artists and academics, we feel a responsibility to engage ethically with the complex history of human connections to this living space, recognising both the power of natural forces and the accelerating impact of human actions. 

“Through our artistic responses, we hope in this project to evoke a pressing awareness of shared vulnerability, acknowledging that human presence in this place is neither passive nor neutral but deeply entangled in a shifting, fragile ecology.”

The project comes at a poignant time in the coastline’s history: documenting the memories of lives lived on Spurn Point – on the coastline’s southern-most tip – following the first-recorded human retreat from the tip in it’s 700-year history of human habitation, which took place in 2023.

The interviews, which can be heard at numerous different headphone listening posts at the exhibition, make a soulful contribution to the overall feel of the exhibition. Other highlights which add to the rich matrix of the project include:

• Between Two Tides, a movement and spoken word piece, which was originally performed at low tide by 18 students to local residents at Easington Beach. A dynamic film of this performance can be viewed at the exhibition.
• An ambisonic installation of field recordings from the peninsula, which prompted the creation of a new musical work – Coastal Process. The piano-improvisation and strings of this piece, recorded in the University’s Middleton Hall earlier this year, can be heard at the exhibition.
• Research artefacts, themed Landlines, Tidemarks, Skylights and Retreat, bring a variety of perspectives on the landscape, on human history and on the managed relocation of populations affected by climate change and coastal processes.

Research for the project, which involved working with residents and stakeholder groups, also involved consulting historical and archival materials. Through creative processes, the researchers addressed questions relating to how art, music and literature can communicate scientific and historical knowledge about a place in accessible ways; what opportunities the landscape offers for physical and mental wellbeing; how the coast and its communities are being impacted by climate change and geographical isolation; as well as the effects of both new and old forms of UK energy infrastructure on its seascape, flora, fauna.

Jan Crowther, a long-term resident of Kilnsea and author of The People along the Sand: The Spurn Peninsula and Kilnsea: A History, 1800-2000, said: “It has been a pleasure to be involved with the South Holderness Eco-Arts Project. At the outset the care which the team took to research the area and those associated with it impressed me. They met as many people as they could, visited frequently, and were always responsive to its very special nature. 

“As a result, the performance on the beach was truly heart-felt, meaningful and beautiful. The interviews, drawn from a varied group of people who relate to the area in many different ways, provide a rare and vivid insight into this unusual place – and the resulting website, with interviews, photographs, videos, music and poetry, really captures a place which is very close to my heart.”

Ryan Wilson, a BA Drama and Theatre Practice student involved in the performance of Between Two Tides, reflected on his work: “It’s one thing to rehearse in space, it’s another thing to create something for that space. Working in nature is very liberating. When you’re surrounded by buildings with bricks and such, it feels so cold and sterile; but when you are creating art in nature, the liveness of the space is exhilarating.”

The team of researchers includes: Dr Christian Billing, Dr Anna Fitzer, Toby Horkan, Dr Ellen Jeffrey, Dr Magnus Johnson and Dr Mark Slater. 

The exhibition runs until 4 December 2024. The gallery is open from 9am to 5pm daily. The research was made possible with funding from the Ferens Education Trust and the UKRI Higher Education Innovation Fund. Videography and photography is by the Hull-based digital production company Hinterland Creative, and the researchers.

For more information on the Eco-Arts South Holderness project, including a a fascinating wealth of resources including oral history recordings, field recordings, original music compositions, poetry, film and photography, visit the project’s new website: https://ecoarts.hull.ac.uk