Wave Kinetics

During my Blue Health travels aboard tall ship Tenacious, I was struck by the waveforms I found at sea, on long night watches and through the glass of my small berth’s porthole. These pots are inspired by the circularity of the waves, each one slipping seamlessly, becoming subsumed into the next, and the next. The kinetics of waves gave me much to think about, and I aimed to capture this in my ceramic pieces.

Through my project I was able to appreciate blue health as a conduit for alternative sensory experiences – for example, at the All Aboard training centre at Bristol harbourside, I heard accounts of teams of blind rowers, who, despite their visual impairment, were so attuned to the feeling of the oars in their hands that they could work perfectly to move in unison. The complex interaction between the blue environment and our senses afford the formation of ‘haptic restorative sensory experiences’. But what does the sea afford that cannot be done on land? The sea and the blue environment offer a space to just ‘be’ – to float, immerse, move without the requirement to even support your own body. The unique nature of this ‘haptic’ experience perhaps can be attributed to this liberating experience of immersion – feeling in ‘the hands’ of the waves and currents moving you rather than your own body. 

 (extract from At Sea with Disability and Blue Health programme assignment 2022)