Re)collecting (f)ears sound mirror art events

re)collecting (f)ears is a series of site-specific performances at fallen sound mirrors across the Kent coast. The project will culminate with a publication produced by Well Projects and an exhibition of photographic & film documentation, exhibited at ]performance s p a c e [ (Folkestone) and Well Projects (Margate).

These sonic remains are physical manifestations of pre-war tensions and fears – initially built to provide defence, they are now succumbing to elemental erosive forces along the coasts of England. As relics of an early warning system that never came to fruition, their failure to serve their intended function could be seen to occupy the space of a fossilised mourning for a future that never came.

More on Facebook and at selinabonelli‘s website. It seems there is something happening in Folkestone on 14 and/or 21 September 2019.

There have been events on Thursday 15 August 2019 at the Warden Point sound mirror from 13:45 to 20:08:

And before that at the Hythe sound mirror from 12:00 to 17:10 on Sunday 15 July 2019, at and Abbot’s Cliff from 11:08 to 18:34 on Sunday 16 June 2019.

Sound mirror poem

Sound Mirror, a Denge sound mirror inspired poem by Derek Adams at Places of Poetry:

“It does not stand on the marsh.
It does not sit in the landscape.
[more]”

Places of Poetry “aims to use creative writing to prompt reflection on national and cultural identities in England and Wales, celebrating the diversity, heritage and personalities of place. The site is open for writers to pin their poems to places from 31st May to 4 October 2019.”

“Bombing the Channel Ports” by Eric Ravilious, then and now

A comparison of the 1941 watercolour painting “Bombing the Channel Ports” by war artist Eric Ravilious, and the same view of the Abbott’s Cliff sound mirror on 13 August 2017.

Bombing the Channel Ports
Bombing the Channel Ports © IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1588)

The painting is described by the Imperial War Museum as showing “a deserted coastal road that leads past an ‘acoustic mirror’ early warning device. In the top right of the composition there are searchlights beaming up into the sky, and a large circular glow of light to one side.”