Research activity in the Morecambe Bay area. Site visit to Birkrigg Common, October 2017.
Sensing 'the genius loci': the protective spirit of the place. Form and features, character, atmosphere and moods of the landscape. Identifying qualities of colour, texture, presence of creatures, odours, sounds. Sky, clouds, wind, light, shadows. Histories, legends, memories, on and under the surface.
Morecambe Bay has long drawn artists and writers who gain inspiration from its sensual spell of co-existing opposites, where experiences are of "…past and present, then and now, buried and unearthed, permanent and transitory, real and unreal..." Here, the tidal flows, rippling, shining sands; estuaries, headlands and farmlands, sacred sites and places of work, merge the enduring and the ephemeral, connect human and non human worlds.
