Collecting

Development work for Suffolk Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty public engagement project

The next Unbuilt Studio coastal encounter will be at Landguard Point: a piece of land used by humans in many ways as well as being a protected habitat for coastal plants and birds.

Our focus is on the found object: the strand line is varied here reflecting the myriad uses of the promontory. Both man-made waste and naturally occurring objects are gathered and deposited by the longshore drift.

What is our relationship with a found  object. How does it feel to choose something from the beach, why would we select one object over another, how does it feel in the palm of our hands, how do we handle and examine it. When is it acceptable to take something home and what are other ways of remembering that initial connection.

Folded containers are a first thought, closing around the object and offering up a surface for drawing, recording ideas, making notes, asking questions.

Today working with industrial waste, I’m drawn back to the same question. Can I make a vessel that thinks through our relationship with the object in our hand and considers above all the sense of touch? Is this relationship similar to treasuring a handheld device?

These objects are gathered from Preston Pans in Edinburgh, a site of historic industrial production.