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A series of site-specific installation and performance events exploring the geological and environmental history of the British and French coastlines. The English Channel (Fr. La Manche) has been expanding through a process of gradual but irreversible erosion for over half a million years since water from the North Sea lake breached the natural dam of the Dover Straights and poured into the tidal plain of the Greater Seine river system the birth of a sea: a single giant river whose banks are now the coast lines of separate nations. Although the chalk cliffs of England and France seem timeless, the land is still giving in to water and, exacerbated by higher sea levels, the cliffs are increasingly giving way under the remorseless pummelling of the tides. LITTORAL would mark this process of continual transformation and draw attention to the issue of erosion through a series of cross-channel events involving installation, performance and public participation, taking place on both coastlines and possibly in the channel itself. LITTORAL is the next stage in Red Earth’s exploration of coastal erosion following GEOGRAPH, a series of events that took place on the Severn Sisters coastline throughout 2005. BACKGROUND Between May and September 2005 Red Earth successfully realised GEOGRAPH, a site-specific project on the East Sussex coast at Birling Gap in partnership with the National Trust and the Applied Geology Research Unit at Brighton University. Geograph involved three separate but connected events incorporating installation, live sound, performance, ritual and public participation in collaboration with painter Sax Impey, Javanese performer Parmin Ras, and geologist Professor Rory Mortimore from AGRU. As an interpretation of scientific and archaeological information Geograph actively engaged the public in both a rational and an intuitive interpretation of the location. Red Earth now wishes to expand on this original project and explore the British and French coastlines towards the creation of a new project: LITTORAL. R&D Red Earth is in the process of researching and developing concepts, locations, hosts, and funding partners with interest in and access to the British and French coastline, towards a series of several new site-specific events involving long-term residential interaction with the local environment and population. PROJECT OUTLINE Working within the general structure of the original Geograph, each project would be site-specific and respond directly to the geological, ecological and environmental details of the site/s in question, reinterpreting this information through time-based installation, performance and public participation as part of an event or as structural workshops towards an installation. Consolidation of site or sites will follow consultation with French authorities, arts officers, and scientific partners. At this stage LITTORAL could take one of several forms: Focus on two sites, one English, one French, creating temporary installations and two (possibly simultaneous) events. Takes place in several locations (eg three on each coast), but focuses on two final events (or one simultaneous cross-channel) event. Involves a mid-channel ship-based event to take place at the deepest point of the channel ie in line with the energetic flow of the prehistoric river. SITES Following an initial visit to the Normandy coast Red Earth lead artists have marked the following coastal sites as possible event locations (from east to west):
ARTISTS/COLLABORATIVE PARTNERS The project is being developed by RED EARTH lead artists in collaboration with Professor Rory Mortimore, partner in the ROCC (Risk of Cliff Collapse) survey - jointly run with the Le Havre University and the French Geological Survey (BRGM). Other potential partners include:
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