Norwich University of the Arts
2023 - 2025
Our fellowship research considers how the meeting of contemporary offshore wind turbines with the geological history of Doggerland could be a tool to creatively explore the historical, cultural, and political narratives surrounding wind energy and oceanic thinking. The approach to this is through a responsive workshop practice, site visits, connections with archaeologists, filming, collaborative making and a varied technological practice.
In April and May 2024, we led workshops that took participants on fast boat trips to Scroby Sands, one of the UK’s earliest offshore wind farms. These trips provided participants with a visceral, bodily encounter with the turbines and highlighted the tension between energy development and archaeological research. While seismic data from the energy sector has deepened understanding of ancient landscapes, areas reserved for turbines can no longer be sampled. The workshops continued at OrbisEnergy, an offshore renewables hub, where participants represented entities such as the seabed, marine species, archaeological finds, government bodies, energy companies, maritime law, fishing, climate change, digital imaging, myths, and vernacular storytelling, in order to represent a relation of the sea that reflected its enlarged ecosystem, and to pitch for the new Scroby Sands information centre.