Beached

Installation in a municipal beach hut on Dawlish Warren, Carol Laidler, Pat Jamieson, September 2016

Fin whale
juvenile female
Beached - Dawlish 29.09.16
Umbilical cord still attached
It doesn’t appear to be a ship strike
It doesn’t appear to be an entanglement

The installation consisted of two deckchairs, a book of writing from Flight, a book of photographs of a dead whale that was washed up on the neighbouring beach while we were there and a map that guided the viewer to two other points along the spit: Sanctuary on the beach and Hide in the bird hide. Each day we walked the landscape from the beach hut at the amusement park to the bird hide on the edge of the salt-marsh, two extremes at opposite ends of Dawlish Warren. At the hide we chalked up words as messages to the birdwatchers.

This site-responsive work is a metaphor for migration, ownership and territory, raising questions about privilege, who is hiding and who or what is being protected.