I came across the documentary The Wrecking Season, by Nick Darke, through the archives section of the weekly briefing. It struck me as a film that may be of interest, and relevant to my work, through the connection of objects with stories, especially those washed up on Cornish beaches.
The following are the notes I took while watching the film:
- similar idea to my own work – stories/history/time bound up in objects – but approached more scientifically/rigorously
- gets a more explicit sense of the human stories involved
- the human stories behind the material
- there was an interesting personal connection I found with the film – the beach of Porthcothan, where the film was mainly based, is a beach I visited a lot through my childhood so holds a strong sense of nostalgia
- one time I visited Porthcothan there were a lot of Christmas trees along the strandline:
- strong sense of storytelling (e.g. in the scene where he describes ‘Kevins’)
- ritualistic sense of gathering
- branded personal details into American fishing gear – traceable (ecological/climate side to this?)
- similarities between fishing either side of the Atlantic (the Atlantic as a mirror? boundary? conveyor belt?)
- ‘the poetry of fishing is scattered along the strandline’
- uses found gear as a currency – exchanges it for bait etc
- local knowledge – place names for rocks and islands
- ‘Jan Leverton’s Island – Jan is lost in memory, nobody can remember who he was but that is all the more reason for preserving his name’
- history being remembered through names – importance of remembering (especially for small coastal/fishing villages in Cornwall)
- Hemsley (wrecked ship), Cecilia (wrecked ship at Rowan Cove – had coal on board that still washes up), Kodima at Whitsands Bay – all would be good places to go and explore/visit
- ‘wreckers and their culture have been hijacked by Romantic novelists’ – people luring ships onto rocks to steal their goods
- the value/profit in wrecking – not many trees in Cornwall so driftwood is valuable
- furniture/structures made entirely from driftwood
- a way of working that is dying out
- the widely accepted rule of ‘if you get it across the high water mark it’s yours’
- there becomes a story behind the very materiality of e.g. a piece of driftwood which is then wrapped up in another story of a piece of furniture
- shipworm boring holes into wood
- ‘Flotsam that’s been out at sea for a long time is like a town. It’s been built on by the barnacles, burrowed by the terado, drilled by the gribble and there’s an intricate system of underpasses and flyovers that’s been laid down by the tube worm.’
- as the ice caps melt the sea gets less salty
- ‘In 50 years of wrecking, the biggest change I’ve noticed is synthetic. There’s a whole plastic continent out there, floating.’
- nurdles – small plastic beans
- the ocean as a finely tuned instrument
- tropical seeds – sea beans – can drift for decades and still grow where they land
- ‘I love it when words wash in.’
- example whereby he tracked sign that washed in back to a community that is no longer in existence
- messages in bottles
- ‘It’s impossible for one mind to encompass the complexity of its workings, the subtlety of its moods and the diversity of all life within it.’ (the ocean)
- interface of sea, land and air
- ‘global conveyor belt’ – interlinked with human history
- chasing stories
- ‘you just never quite find out what it is the sea is trying to tell you’
- end credits – passing round a mystery object to all the people involved in the documentary – their responses are a neat summary of their characters within the film
Although perhaps less relevant to my own work, I also watched Nick and Jane Darke’s documentary The Art of Catching Lobsters. It was such an impactful film, the subdued frankness of the home-filmed videos truly giving the viewer and insight into the family’s grieving process. The film had a very different subject matter to The Wrecking Season but also used some similar themes and modes of storytelling, as can be seen from the notes I took while watching:
- ‘recording the world around you is a way of fixing yourself within it’
- stories and names – out of the seas and into his plays
- the idyllic/poetic backdrop is juxtaposed with the stroke and cancer
- home video-style portrays an idea of realistic family life
- taking it day by day – finding distraction such as in the knot forming scene
- discussion of the church (re where to be buried) – Nick wasn’t a religious man but found it to be ‘fitting’ to be buried in the church – down to a sense of place and the history and ritual associated with it
- a sense of time passing
Inspired by particularly The Wrecking Season I did a little wrecking/beach combing myself which resulted in these finds:
As yet I’m not sure if these will become part of an artwork or become an artwork themselves, or perhaps simply not be used at all. At present I think I just need to exist alongside them for a little while. When considering stories and time being bound up in objects, I find this collection to be a shift away from deep timescales towards more human timescales. There are more explicit hints of stories in items that have been clearly used and shaped by human hands which may perhaps make an interesting contrast to the stones and rocks I have looked at for some time now. I also enjoy how these particular objects almost bridge the gap between human-made object and natural objects – glass, brick and pottery all seem close cousins, materially, to stone, just one step removed, edging nearer to the human.
Anna Harris 