The Discovery Beach

This is a story about a small part of our coastline. A piece of beach 50m x 100m on the Essex coast near Walton on the Naze. Our world and our lives are so vast, that we can go anywhere, and see anything. Information and data are thrust upon us from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. Our attention spans are reduced as we reach for our phones and flick through the thousands of channels on our media devices. Relationships are virtual, and short conversations via snap chat or DM's are all our brains can cope with. Intimacy is gone, as we only explore the world and humankind from the thin veneer of superficial interrogation.

I found myself thinking about an art project that could help me address the frustration I find myself feeling as I spend my time jumping from one thought to another. I wanted to approach a concept, an idea not just from the "visual output" of effort, (i.e a photograph) but the actual effort of creating the image itself.

So after some thought, I came to the concept of the need to take a subject that could be abstracted to a smaller, simpler form. From seascape to the coastline, from coastline to beach from beach to sand etc. The idea was then born, to take a small part of the beach and focus on it. Over a period of 12 months look, at and understand its every rock, or change in gradient, the way the tide moved as it receded or rolled in, the light, the people that walk there, and the wildlife that called it home. But also to document the process of that process. The car journey to the destination, the parking spot I always use, the pay and display machine. The walk down the cliffs, the excitement, the fatigue of not finding anything new, the journey home.

There are many things about this project that are yet to unfold. I know the concept of the idea, and I understand at the moment the motivation of the idea. What I don't know is what I will find and what I will discover. About the beach and about myself.