The Bay Trilogy, 3 visual poems/films from the “Weather Station”

John Fox

 

1. “The Oystercatcher’s Tale” (6min) A fable about global warming featuring an old carpenter who, in order to combat the European decline of oystercatchers, makes a flock of wooden whirly-gig birds.

 

2. “Secrets of the Rock” (5min) A remarkable revelation of the diatoms and protons (our ancestral bacterial DNA) sampled in a teaspoon of seawater on the west shore of Morecambe Bay. Filmed thorough powerful microscopes at Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University this a creation myth for today.

 

3. “Machineman” (1min.) Filmed on a mobile phone this savage haiku is witness to a wind-powered helmeted man relentlessly thrashing a huge golden fish. The “Weather Station” is an extended garden installation on the west shore of Morecambe Bay. Started in 2008 it reflects the relationship between ecology, perception and performance in the liminal space between land and sea. Built on the edge of a shingle beach “Weather Station” is an holistic art work. Focused round a domestic wooden house on stilts, it incorporates poetry, artifacts and seasonal events where scientific analysis is balanced with imaginative and mythic stories.