Dungeness

During a family visit to Hastings, Lance – through driving wind and rain – was taken to Dungeness, a place he had been wanting to visit for years, with its bleakly beautiful coastline and home to the late film director and artist Derek Jarman.

Located on the headland on the coast of Kent, Dungeness (derived from the Old Norse ‘nes’ meaning ‘headland’), features one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe, forming a cuspate foreland. The mass of shingle provides the resting place for numerous fishing boats – some active, some long since seen service – and is home to an astonishing variety of plants, animals and birds, resulting in the area being designated a Special Area of Conservation and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Of particular Special Interest to Lance, alongside the strikingly austere surroundings, were the wave formations that lapped onto the beach; each one at a particular angle to the shoreline, caused, no doubt by the underlying arrangement of shingle:

“The motion of the waves and their direction continually drew my eye across the beach, giving an extra dimension of motion. That, combined with that particular sound of the shingle moved by the water, resulted in an experience that was quite hypnotic”.

Despite the looming presence of the nuclear power station – a lot nearer than one realises – the area made an impression; a place of simple, stark beauty and yet full of spiritual potential. It is no wonder that artists, such as Mr Jarman, choose to spend time there.

Speaking of whom, Lance and Mike took the opportunity to re-watch the director’s raggedly beautiful 1990 film The Garden, which on the surface seems to promise a peaceful meditation on Derek’s garden at Prospect Cottage but is spiked with all manner of religious imagery, scenes of homophobia and other images that defy classification. The mix of the beautifully-grained softness of super 8 film with the harshness of early video, alongside the integrating of specific themes into a non-narrative presentation gave Lance and Mike inspiration for the gestating Earthwaves video project, provisionally titled ‘Pagan Pool’.

But more of that later…