Walking the past/future coast
A walk along the ancient coastline that is now the edge of the North Somerset Levels; which could become coast again with rising sea levels.
Inspired by Richard Long’s mapped walks of the 1970s, this project, 50 years on, responds to an issue of our time – the emerging knowledge of an impending future.
Rather than the elegant mathematical and spiritual abstract shapes of the circle and the line, this project follows another abstract form – the shape of the coast as it may become if current sea level projections come to pass.
Like some of Richard Long’s journeys, the walk follows this abstract line as closely as possible using roads, tracks and public rights of way. Like a coast path, it sometimes veers away from the shoreline but mostly the walk remains close to the edge of this future sea.
As well as a possible future coast this walk also simultaneously follows a very ancient one. A coast that once formed the edge of a large bay with what are now the North Somerset levels being an intertidal zone, submerged under several meters of water at high tide.
Project info
Date: Summer 2023
Location: North Somerset