Joining Doggerland

Before Britain was an island, its east coast connected with Europe through the fertile plains of Doggerland. At the end of the last ice age, warming climates plunged Doggerland below sea level; its vast biodiversities and specific histories became distant and obscured, a memory lost to time. Through the care and attention of archaeologists, biologists, artists and writers, this primordial landscape draws ever nearer, connecting us with what was, and what remains.

The story of Doggerland is at risk of repeating, with climate predictions forecasting that parts of the Fenlands, East Anglia, coastal Britain and low-lying London will be underwater from as early as 2030, expanding significantly with each passing decade (Coastal Risk Screening Tool, Climate Central). In an attempt to grapple with such loss and change, Joining Doggerland unites artists as they contemplate the ongoing dialogue between the land and sea, the human and nonhuman; death, life and deep time.

Spanning painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, sculpture, video and sound, the selected artworks consider flooding across varying forms, scales, and disciplines, forging entangled relations between the past, present, and future. In their respective practices, the exhibiting artists either wrestle with, reflect upon, or reconcile the shifting dynamics of the material, geological, cultural and personal in the face of environmental and societal loss. Like plants rooting and responding to their environments, they situate themselves in processes of ‘emergence, accretion, creation and growth’ (Martin Clark, On Being Sessile, 2020), holding steady in the face of environmental uncertainty as they think and make in symbiotic connection with the earth.

The exhibiting artists are Sophie Mei Birkin, Simon Carter, Alison Cooke, Adam Hedley, Scott Hunter, Olivia Louvel, Raphaella Pester, Sasha Sátchi, Oliver Ventress, and Jack Wheeler. The exhibition runs from the 6th to the 16th of February, Thursdays to Sundays from 12 to 5 pm, at APT Gallery, Deptford Creekside. The private view will be held on February 6th from 6 to 8 pm.