Sand Castles
2014 – 2015
Hunstanton beach, North Norfolk
Series of installations, digital and pinhole photos
Photo: Chris Stenton 2015
Photo: Chris Stenton 2015
Photo: Chris Stenton 2015
Video still
Image: Sally Stenton
Photo: Sally Stenton
Pinhole image hand processed in darkroom
Photo: Sally Stenton
Pinhole image hand processed in darkroom
Photo: Sally Stenton
The work that began on the beach with 2 laptops has developed into installations that have been created on 4 separate occasions. The site specific, public nature of the work and how people come across it and respond in different ways was the initial interest.
The photographs of the installations generated images that went beyond documentation, creating optical illusions that were not so evident in situ. It created confusion about where the artwork was located that held a resonance with the subject matter of the work. The slick digital images conveyed something very much other than the experience of being on the beach and in some instances working in opposition to it.
Documentation became a deliberate development of the work through the decision to generate analogue images of the digital devices using pinhole photography, developing and printing the images by hand in the darkroom.
The process of installing the devices on the beach might be seen as an act of rebellion, taking revenge on technology, to first disconnect it from its power supply, disable its functionality and then generate images of its humiliation without using its own language to do so – a vain attempt to take control, before I inevitably submit again. Like a child controlling her world through play!
Projects bleed into one another and it is at their intersections that the most interesting shifts and switches occur. When someone looked at this photo during an exhibition and said that it made him think of Seahenge, the Listening Stick project was born. I had not heard of Seahenge and yet it had been excavated from the beach close to where the photo was taken.
Photo: Chris Stenton 2015
Photo: Chris Stenton