FLOW

Sara undertook 4 ‘Sporadic Nomadic Walks’ following some of the natural and man-made waterways across the Somerset Levels from Glastonbury to Burnham-on-Sea in early 2023. She was accompanied by fellow walkers, including geologist, Mathilde Braddock, filmmaker Hannah Earl and other walkers from near and far, each bringing their knowledge, insights and perspectives to the walks. They collected earth pigments along the route to make paints and pastels to create artworks that re-interpret the changing landscape, flora, geology and histories of the routes from freshwater to the sea; inland to the coast.

Peats, earths and muds collected during the walks are labelled with the exact location and description of where they were found, resulting in a collection of pigments, paints and pastels, each with an individual story to tell. Together they narrate the journey taken across the Somerset Levels to the sea.

Sara collected specimens of wildflowers growing alongside the waterways. The flora-based paintings follow the documentary tradition of botanical art, but using paints created from the earths from which the plants have grown and in turn will also become. 

The series of dipped papers (each dipped in 3 earth pigment paints collected form locations on the walks) reveal the textures and colours of the different earths, peats and muds and propose an array of different routes which might be taken across this fascinating land.

The paintings, using the most ancient of painterly processes, investigate ideas of human occupation in the landscape, water, terrain, the dynamic equilibrium of marine and freshwater ecology, the deep time compressed within the layers of earth and peat, the continual process of change and evolution which defines this fragile landscape. 

The artworks and accompanying film were displayed in the FLOW exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum in 2023. They have all developed from a scientific understanding of coastal and river ecology and geology, especially water and land management to preserve this threatened natural carbon-capture resource. Together they shine a spotlight on the changes taking place within Somerset’s coast, waterways and peat bogs and highlight the new and different pressures being placed on these sites by climate change and other human impacts.

This exhibition was a development of Somerset’s Brilliant Coast, a coastal engagement project produced by Somerset Wildlife Trust and Contains Art between 2020-2021.