Coastguard Cottages and cliffs at Seaford, East Sussex.
Waterfronts is the name of the artistic project composed of seven works of art installed outdoors on England's Creative Coast which has made this 1,400-kilometre coastline – stretching from the Thames Estuary to the English Channel – the world's first Art GeoTour. **
The modern art route, which covers the counties of Essex, Kent and East Sussex, will be available until November of this year and in it we will be able to admire the installations of various artists who have found inspiration in their coastal towns.
The De La Warr Pavilion, a 1930s modernist Art Deco landmark and arts center on the seafront at Bexhill On Sea.
THE SEVEN WORKS
It was precisely in April when the American Michael Rakowitz presented on the Margate waterfront, next to the Surf-boat Disaster Memorial, a life-size statue of Daniel Taylor, a young soldier friend of his who served in the Royal Artillery during the Iraq War in 2003, which he titled April is the Cruellest Month. A monument against the war inspired by the bronze statues of Iraqi soldiers pointing the finger at Iran from Basra, only in the case of Rakowitz his work points directly to london and parliament.
In Gravesend Pier, Jasleen Kaur has installed a work divided into two parts called The first thing I did was kiss the ground with which aims to recall the rich and complex migration history of what was the first landing point for Antillean immigrants who arrived in the UK aboard the Empire Windrush in 1948. A semi-abstract sculpture depicts a Sikh head and, just opposite, a sound piece located at the edge of the water will emit several stories of the Saheli women of Gravesend.
On the shore of Shoeburyness, on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea, the Metal art lab and the Estuary 21 art festival have teamed up with English artist Katrina Palmer to create HELLO –a large concrete sculpture based on an "acoustic mirror"– and RETREAT, a meditation.
Although HELLO, nestled in East Beach, is Inspired by vintage aircraft early warning systems its true intention is to welcome – with your message – to Europe. For its part, RETREAT it's about identity and how to move into the future.
Holly Hendry's Invertebrate is a giant installation that runs around the exterior of the Warr Pavilion, in Bexhill on Sea, from the promenade lawn to the roof, while inside the building the sculpture will show the effects of the walls "chewed" by the worm.
The Greek artist Andreas Angelidakis has designed eight identical structures located next to the Hastings Contemporary gallery that resemble acropods (sea defense locks). They have been baptized as Seawall and pretend to reflect on whether the border between land and sea can continue to be a habitable place.
Walking through the city I followed a pattern in the pavement that became the enlarged silhouette of a woman's profile is the long and descriptive title that the Mexican Mariana Castillo Deball has given her work, installed in Eastbourne. Conceived to be experienced "as an image, a walking path or a narrative", in the words of the artist, the route –irregular and unexpected– through the city it has been delimited with a rope stamped with chalk on the ground.
In the port city of Folkestone, in Kent, Pilar Quinteros has shaped a multifaceted structure located on top of a cliff overlooking the city and the sea: Janus Fortress: Folkestone.
Made of a carefully calibrated gypsum compound to resemble nearby cliffs, the enormous sculpture –susceptible to disintegrate with erosion and the passage of time– has been defined by the artist based in Santiago de Chile as “a monument to uncertainty” and symbolizes the duality of borders: look outside and protect yourself inside.