Time & Tide
This was a site specific time-based installation created as part of Brighton Festival in 1989. It highlighted hidden pollution in the sea, and my research for this project came from a Greenpeace document on pollution: The Tide must Turn. I gathered naturally formed round chalk stones from the beach and painted the names of chemicals that exist in abundance in our waters, using a water-based paint. The line of stones was placed just below the high-tide mark. As the tide came in it washed over the stones, and the words disappeared. Like the chemicals, the painted words dissolved into the sea, out of sight and out of mind.
It is shocking that it is thirty years since this I created this installation. If anything the waters and oceans have become even more polluted. It really is time for the tide on polluting chemicals to turn.