360

After a storm driftwood piles up along the beach. Rain turns the paths to mud. Life reveals itself in these liminal spaces. I live by the river, close to the sea. I’m drawn to bodies of water.

For a twelve month period I filmed a video every week, fanning out in 360 from my front door to take in the estuaries and woodland, the viaducts and fields. Sped up or slowed down, colour or black and white - or even sometimes sepia. Capturing calm moments of nature and setting them to music that I wrote as an accompaniment.

You can see ducks crossing the river in small groups, like pioneers embarking on a grand adventure. A trail of geese piercing an otherwise empty, clear blue sky. Squirrels performing acrobatics as they leap from one tree to the next. Trains pass the viaduct, meeting from opposite directions and then parting again in haste. A swan walks awkwardly on land, stretching its wings so that it becomes twice its size and small feathers shed themselves with the motion. In a distant graveyard, a blurred figure wanders back and forth among the headstones.

There are bluebells in the woods in spring. Blackberries in profusion as the summer lengthens and the nights slowly begin to draw back in. Autumn leaves. Fields are ploughed in spring and left to grow wild. Winter frosts. A Christmas tree in the local park, its lights flashing out a message of hope.

Shipwreck songs. That’s what the driftwood brings to mind. The power of the tide, even within a broadly benevolent climate. The limbs of a displaced tree embedded in mud and static for months as they reveal themselves every day at low tide, only to sink from view as the water returns a few hours later. Eventually another storm will shift it and the landscape will reshape itself again.

At another inlet there’s the remains of a boat, its skeleton of misshapen ribs visible, poking up through the mud. Everything looks the same here and yet there’s always constant change. Skim stones and watch as they bounce once, twice, three times and more in ever shorter strides until gravity pulls them under. On the surface are ripples that will never come back.

360 is a circle. The last video mirrors the first. The sun has risen and the sun has set again. The seasons came and went. Darkest night eventually begat the summer solstice. We measure time this way. The macro and the micro. A blade of grass bending to the wind as the moon exerts its pull upon the tides. And the sun controlling the movement of the planets. And the galaxies spiralling somewhere far beyond our reach or understanding.