The entire premise of the Shifting Tides project is to engage local community in creativity and ecology. And, following a summer of in-person public engagement and interaction in and around Carlingford Lough, we're so very pleased to provide you with the following activity update.
Kicking off the season on the evening of 2 August, writer and ecologist, Richard Nairn led a community conversation about nature restoration along the local coast. This well-attended event set the positive tone for the month ahead.
The very next day saw we hosted our Voices on the Lough: Writers Workshop. This was aimed at local writer groups from around the Lough and kicked off with a walk and talk with Richard Nairn and Alex McMaster on the shoreline. Then participants headed out on the Lough with facilitator, Ali Warner and Alex McMaster continued to share going on under the water. Ali guided the group to reflect on the experience and use it to inspire their writings of prose and poetry.
On Sunday, 4 August, we were honoured to host composer, Karen Power, as she created a ground-breaking Listening Beneath Carlingford Lough event, which gave attendees the opportunity to listen via hydrophones and discover the sounds from the abundance of life just beneath the surface of the Lough.
On Saturday, 10 August, we continued our creative exploration of the Lough with the hugely engaging Cyanotype Cameraless Photography class, led by artist and photographer Aindreas Scholz.
The following day (11 Aug) saw a community-led change of pace, with our Beach and Underwater Cleaning event, focusing on Greencastle Beach. We’re still so grateful to all the local volunteers who turned out to join the Shifting Tides project team and the local Oceanauts Divers group that Sunday morning.
The third weekend of arts and ecology activity in August continued with collaborations not yet visible to the public on Saturday, 17 August Anna Konieczna was busy with artist Cliodhna Doherty and local swimmers filming for her Body of Water film exploring the relationship between human health, creativity, and the health of the lough.
The creative exploration of local shores continued the following morning (Sunday, 18 August), as Ann Marie Savage led a Microphotography Art Workshop, which allowed attendees to explore and be inspired by microscopic images of life from the seabed and grains of sand from the shoreline of Carlingford Lough and create their own works in response.
Additional summer events included our very own resident ecologist, writer and highly experienced scientific diver, Alex McMaster, speaking about marine ecology and citizen science at the Fiddlers Green Festival in Rostrevor, where he was warmly received. Through our collaboration with Upstate Theatre, Declan Mallon continued to gather oral history from local residents, learning about how people have interacted with the Lough for generations.
Alex organized a key ingredient of the Shifting Tides project’s focus on underwater world via a sea-search training for divers from around the Lough. The aim was to train either individual recording ability as an observer surveyor and become citizen scientists for this invisible to many realms.
We wrapped up our summer events programme on Saturday, 24 August with our Beach Sculpture Workshops, held in two locations on the Lough (Warrenpoint and Omeath). Bringing a hands-on creative approach to exploring human cast of debris and marine elements that wash up on the shore, this workshop brought together the power of storytelling, art, and environmental stewardship – the very essence of the Shifting Tides project.
As the summer ended, and autumn drew near, the project director started to plan for a showcase of the creative harvest of all this activity for Culture Night in Warrenpoint town hall, you can read and watch a summary of that event here. A special thanks goes to our many local contacts, all of whom helped to promote and spread the word about the unique Shifting Tides engagement, learning and creative opportunities!
