This week I was drawn to the Lost Villages Project by Neil A. White. The artist documents the battle between the North Sea and
mainland England with erosion worsening as a result of rising sea levels.
Villages founded in Roman times slowly fall into the sea. At first, I felt
nostalgic looking at these images and thinking about the breezy English
coastline. Some of his photographs emphasize the beautiful expansive coastline
trailing off into the distance. The images remind me of the Romantic notion of
the sublime and the awe-inspiring quality of nature. This is especially evident
in images with a few people dotted around the photographs engulfed by the
enormous beach and cliff sides around them. Other images provoke fear and
astonishment at the power of the ocean. Sometimes White zooms into the
destruction making it seem even more tangible. For example, he shows parts of
houses lying on the beach with waves crashing around them. Other times he
provides a broader perspective showing the magnitude of the erosion. A
particularly starting image shows a road split in half with one side fallen
into sea. Some photographs appear calm and quiet while other have a sense of
impending doom. The series forces the viewer to reflect upon our effect on the
environment and the environments effect on our lives.
Also, I started looking at some of his other work and his series It's Rubbish really caught my eye...
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