Ian, S., Prof Richard, VN., Aubrey, K., 2020.

Sensing the coast: exploring permanence, physicality and perspective

The research questions our relationship with the UK coastline using glass, science and poetry. The outputs will be produced during the sabbatical due in March 2019, and submitted for presentation at Atelier d'arts Film Fest (European Film Festival for Fine Crafts) and Real to Reel, the UK Film Festival of Crafts, Feb 2020.
The significance of the coastline is rich, politically, environmentally and creatively. Our experience of the coast remains diverse, offering a space for mindful encounters, a place that evokes memory, a means to monitor environmental impact and a subject of political debate as the impact of Brexit questions real and perceived borders.
The significance of the research is in its exploration of the coastline as a transitional space, located between landmass and sea, a changeable environment that is responsive to surrounding elements and circumstance. It researches the impact of the coastline as an experiential and intergenerational space, offering the young the chance of freedom and play, evoking memories for the elderly, offering many an opportunity for mindful encounter or a place of ecological study.
What from a distance appears as a clear demarcation between land and water dissolves into intangibility as one approaches the convergence of these two media. Our encounters are necessarily temporal and temporary, our experience mandated by external forces such as the ebb and flow of the tide and gravitational pull of the moon. It is a fluid environment, literally and metaphorically. Immersing oneself in the coastline, the research will explore the ideas of permanence, notions of physicality and of human perspective.
Glass is used as a means to challenge these experiences and explore ideas of permanence; its very materiality, whilst appearing to be either a molten or solid state, the medium presents the opportunity to captures the essence of both as a super-cooled liquid. The material nature of glass has previously enabled new perspectives, the telescope and microscope affording new insight of self in relation to the world around us. Within this research, the optical and transparent qualities of the material, challenge perception and offer new perspectives.
The impact of the research is in both the cross-disciplinary nature of the outputs, uniting glass, science and poetry in a common theme. Each is seen independent of the others, where the glass outputs provide interactions that question permanence and perspective. Collectively, the three disciplines compliment the others, providing optical, scientific and textual lenses through which to encounter the coastline.

New persectives: Glass optic lenses

New persectives: Glass optic lenses

New persectives: Glass optic lenses

Glass optics

New Perspectives: Optic Glass Lens, Photography

New Perspectives: Sunset: Optic Glass Lens, Photography

New Perspectives: Optic Glass Lens, Photography