Estuary Photography Exhibition

AN exhibition opening at The Beecroft Art Gallery this month will feature photography of the Thames Estuary from artists, both local and international.

Into The Zone: Journeys in the Thames Estuary takes its names from the film Stalker by Russian director Tarkovsky, which tells the story of an expedition to a mysterious zone, to seek a room where dreams are granted.

Seeing the Thames Estuary as an equally hypnagogic and eerie place, each of the artists present projects, which interrogate the territory from different vantages and through exploratory journeys.

Four of the artists – Anna Lukala, Sylak Ravenspine, Mark Taylor, and Michael Upton – hail from Leigh and Southend.

Michael Upton uses the paradoxical repetitiveness and uniqueness of sea swims to emotional response the estuary and its waters, whilst Mark Taylor finds a dream of flying in swimmers caught mid-leap from Leigh’s wharves.

Anna Lukala investigates the vulnerability of tidal ecosystems and Sylak Ravenspine focuses on a small square of Benfleet’s mudflats, using a collectively constructed grid as a way to pay close attention to the estuary’s seasonal changes.

An opening event will be held on Saturday 22 February from 2 to 4.30pm at The Beecroft, located in the old Southend Library on Victoria Avenue.

Whilst the exhibition will run until May 11th, a series of events and talks are also planned, including a screening of Stalker (1979) with an introduction by the exhibition’s curator, Mr Upton, in addition to artists’ talks and a guided photographic walk in the Thames Estuary area.

A publication documenting the exhibition and associated programme will form part of that project.

Picture: Marker by Michael Upton

Report by Sophie Sleigh-Johnson

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