Estuary 2021 brings outdoor art to North Kent this weekend
Overview of Opening Weekend and North Kent highlights
Estuary 2021 is the second edition of the large-scale arts festival that celebrates the lives, landscapes and histories of the spectacular Thames Estuary.
Taking place on the river itself, and along the 107 miles of South Essex and North Kent coastline, over 90 contemporary artworks, discussion and events explore and respond to powerful themes resonant to the estuary.
Artworks set in the landscape, online and within Covid-safe venues, explore the estuary through the lens of contemporary concerns, including climate justice, protest and rebellion, imperial legacy and the rich, often overlooked stories of its diverse communities, bringing new audiences to a deeper understanding of the estuary.
Estuary 2021 is led by a partnership between estuary-based arts organisations, Metal (South Essex) and Cement Fields (North Kent).
The Thames Estuary coastline as a continuous walk was originally described by local writer and avid walker, Tom King in his book Thames Estuary Trail: A Walk round the End of the World (published in 2001 by Desert Island Press) which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and has been re-published by Estuary 2021 with a new introduction and additional chapters.
Artist Maria Amidu has created eight ceramic plaques to mark along the length of the walk, including, in Kent, the Three Daws in Gravesend; the Coffee Pot in Leysdown; the Sportsman in Seasalter, and North Foreland, between Margate and Broadstairs.
Online Opening Weekend, An Unknown Earth
Estuary 2021 will launch with an Opening Weekend (Sat 22 May / Sun 23 May 2021) packed with live streamed discussions and specially commissioned artworks presented online.
Starting at high tide, early Saturday morning (22 May) and finishing three tide cycles later, at 10pm on Sunday evening, an international line-up of artists, scientists, activists and guests will explore our themes of climate, rebellion and imperial legacy, brought together by a group of four artists/curators who all know the Estuary as their home:
Jas Dhillon is a multimedia practitioner inspired by the people, script, language, symbolic objects, and poetic experiences, of the love and identity imprinted on her as a first-generation Indian female raised in Rochester.
Elsa James is a British African-Caribbean, conceptual artist and activist living in Southend-on-Sea. Recent projects Forgotten Black Essex (2018) and Black Girl Essex (2019) explore the historical, temporal and spatial dimensions of what it means to be black in Essex.
James Marriott, writer, artist, activist and naturalist, lives on the Hoo Peninsula, and his forthcoming book Crude Britannia, tells the story of Britain's energy past, present and future with a focus on the Thames Estuary.
North Kent programme highlights
Across North Kent Towns: Marcus Coates’ Our Time
Marcus Coates’ Our Time places the songs and calls of locally threatened bird species onto 6 clock towers along the North Kent coastline. The work will be heard as clocks would chime, on the hour. Marking these moments will be the beautiful and enigmatic songs and call of species such as the nightingale, curlew, lapwing, cuckoo, and turtle dove.
In Dartford, it can be heard at The Clocktower, Suffolk Road
In Gravesend, it can be heard at Gravesend Clock Tower, 152 Milton Road
In Rochester, it can be heard at The Guildhall, 17 High Street, Rochester
In Faversham, it can be heard at The Guildhall, Market Place, Faversham
In Herne Bay, it can be heard at Herne Bay Clock Tower, 72 Central Parade, Herne Bay
In Margate, it can be heard at Droit House, The Pier, Margate, CT9 1JD
In Gravesend, Northfleet & Ebbsfleet: Sadie Hennessy’s Golden Years
Inspired by the pop culture collections of Peter Blake (who grew up locally and attended art school in Gravesend), Sadie is filling a number of shop windows in St George’s Shopping Centre with local people’s collections of memorabilia and ephemera. Each window will be accompanied by audio featuring the collectors talking about their collections and the stories behind them. Keep your eyes out for collections of vintage movie posters, rare trainers, Dr Who and Diana Dors memorabilia, and more. You can see the collections every day.
Alongside the collections will be a golden ice-cream van, encrusted with musical instruments and gadgets, that will host a DJ booth, playing people’s favourite songs live each Saturday 11:00 - 16:00. If you can tell the DJ the memories and stories behind your favourite record, they’ll play your song.
In Chatham: Bob & Roberta’s Smith’s Draw Hope
Bob and Roberta Smith’s Draw Hope pavilion is an outdoor gallery and art-making space that will be sited on the green outside Chatham Library, right on the River Medway as it sweeps its way to the Thames.
A space to make and view art, everyone is invited to come and make their mark on the pavilion by drawing directly onto the walls of the structure, and through workshops with Bob and Roberta Smith and six local artists. Sign up to workshops here
In Faversham: Something & Son’s Trolley Reef
Trolley Reef is a long term project and artwork to create a new oyster reef in North Kent, using supermarket trolleys. The idea plays with the common sight of seeing the legs of dumped trolleys sticking up out of our waterways, something which has become a symbol of society’s disconnect and disregard for nature. Supermarket trolleys are also the end point of an industrial and global agricultural system that is destroying ecosystems worldwide.
Trolley Reef will turn these negative connotations into a positive by taking discarded trolleys and turning them into a new oyster reef. The trolley cages allow the oysters to build up on top of each other, creating complex three-dimensional interstitial spaces that are perfect for many other species to also spawn and take refuge in. Thus the project actively helps to create a new ecosystem, and also builds new relationships between people and ecology.
In Margate: Maggie Harris’ and the thing is
and the thing is is a poem about immigration, and questions about race, exile, and how we find identity and home. It takes us from Brixton, to the Welsh Valleys, Madeira, the Ivory Coast, and Edinburgh, and finally to Kent, where ‘broken families are walking out of the sea’. A powerful and moving poem, written with humour and a light touch, by Maggie, who was born in Guyana and lives in Thanet, and the thing is won the national Poetry Wales 2020 Award.
A recording of Maggie reading and the thing will is, is available online, and a limited edition printed version will be available in cafes around Margate during the festival.
Sue Jones, Co-Director of Estuary 2021, said: “I’m delighted to be able to show the wealth of artistic talent we have in Kent, to work together with our Essex neighbours and to highlight the wonderful connection we have through the Thames Estuary.”