Notes from Jeremy Gardiner about his forthcoming exhibition opening on 6th March
The rocks that make up our island’s coast are ancient and diversified, representing a long and complicated history of events. They embody many periods of geological time and varieties of climate, from scorching heats to frozen wastes. During the previous three billion years Britain has been flooded by tropical seas, landlocked in hot dry desert, submerged under swamps and frozen beneath thick ice, as it drifted from near the South Pole to the northern latitudes, closer to where we are today.
Our geology was the source of raw materials during the Industrial Revolution and important for the nation's wealth and power. As an island nation, our coastline is a record of this social, geological and economic change. Since October 2016 I have been exploring the modern-day reality of these coastal locations; looking afresh at the harbours, bays, coves, castles and follies that characterise the remarkable shoreline of the South West Coast Path; and encountering a landscape reshaped by man,and touched by memories of generations past.
