Drawing-performance to camera in the mud flats
Purton Ships Graveyard, 2022
Those months without air
sleep arrested
to the staccato tic.tac of statistic
choked on virus hold.
Those anaerobic teemings
of musty mud-wet life
synthesize senses
with less-than-micro glimpses of diatomaceous life.
The water-ways around Bristol are volatile; the Severn Estuary has the second largest tidal reach in the world (about 15m). The tidal waters push up into the Avon through the centre of Bristol and the floods bring deluges down; sewage dumping by the water companies is frequent. It is an environment barely in equilibrium, demonstrated when Cumberland Road outside Spike Island collapsed into the canalised tidal New Cut. The mudbank running alongside the canal at Purton Ship's Graveyard was shored up with end-of-life ships to defend against the ravages of the tide.
