Estuary Waves

Description

Cyanotype metamorphogram on vintage map. 35 x 35 cm

For several years I collaborated with an artist on the south side of the Humber Estuary. This map covers the area I would see as I crossed the Humber bridge, looking east out to sea.

Occasionally the estuary had devastatingly high flood tides, and much of the lower-lying ground was swamped, covered with mud and silt. Fields ruined, property damaged and lives affected.

This work tried to reflect some of that experience, both of the land and in my memory of it. A vintage map was coated in cyanotype chemicals and folded into a complex origami model of waves crashing. After exposure, opening the model – the waves receding – left this memory of the experience.