sea of glass

The coastal landscape of West Wales provides the setting for this short film. Organic remnants are manipulated and juxtaposed with music and photography in order to investigate the liminal space between land and sea.

In 2007 I was one of a small number of artists invited to work with the composer Tom Middleton in creating a visual response to his musical compositions, this culminated in an audio visual performance at the National Film Theatre, London.

As ‘Sea of Glass’ evolved beyond the original piece it provided an opportunity for me to address some long held concerns, and undertake an exploration of threshold space based upon personal experience.

A while ago I was lucky enough to be part of a four person crew sailing a copy of Joshua Slocumb’s boat ‘Spray’ from North Wales across the Atlantic Ocean to Trinidad. The experience was a formative and unexpectedly spiritual one, having never sailed before. Whilst steering this tiny vessel on the vast ocean the physical and mental space I inhabited seemed to combine and each became indistinguishable from the other, inducing an almost dreamlike state.

This idea of ‘liminal’ space continues to inform my work and ‘Sea of Glass’ examines how this is manifested in the context of the Seashore. Neither land nor sea but in a state of constant flux between the two, it becomes a threshold space between the conscious and the unconscious.

The objects brought here by the tide are like fragments of half remembered dreams washed up on the shores of the waking world.

links

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2010 festival archive
Live Performance Sea of Glass performed live at The National film Theatre
Vimeo Sean Vicary on Vimeo
Vimeo Video Sea of Glass at Vimeo