Walk The Chalk

Website: Walk the Chalk

Production: LYT Productions & Lewes District Council

The project included accessible guided walks, artist installations, walking actors inhabiting memories from the past and a full programme of exhibitions, music, performance, debate and sound installations.

I was one of six artists commissioned to create a site inspired installation held on the beautiful chalk clifftop at Seaford, overlooking The Seven Sisters.

The report from the project’s ecologist detailed recorded sitings of chough (aka sea crow) back in 1830 and inspired me to design an ambitious, large-scale automata of the bird. Choughs had once inhabited the area but were regarded as pests by farmers and shot out of existence. The Chough was to be hand-cranked into flight (thus reversing its plight at human hands), using a simple crank shaft mechanism, by members of the public. She had a 9m wingspan, was made in willow and would gently flap around 3m from the ground.

Then, on the penultimate day of set-up, jeopardy showed up in the form of Storm Betty. She perilously demolished one artist’s installation and bent The Chough’s framework beyond repair. For safety, the mechanism was disabled and after a challenging resuscitation, she assumed a static pose.

I had a phenomenal bunch of loyal pals who helped me out at the ninth, tenth and eleventh hours, wrangling willow into wings and more. I offered angst, unattainable vision and foul weather; I couldn’t have done it without them.

The installation was in a SSSI and the festival had an attendance of around 15,000.