Output:

‘EDGELAND’ is an eco-poetic response to rising seas and coastal conurbations. Rhythmic and inter-personal in nature, the durational work provides an embedded portrait of an urban edgeland in a location strongly influenced by the foundations of the European democratic movement.

Migratory histories, carried by Baltic flows, form a framework that’s underpinned by the social architecture of Solidarnoś, or Solidarity, and Lech Wałęsa. The roots of which embody a powerful potential, to this very day, in terms of propagating the democratic seeds of collective action in the face of overwhelming events.

Geographically, the work is set within a tri-city context where waters threaten to “… reshape cities, economies, coastlines and entire global regions within our lifetimes” (Scott Kulp quoted in ‘Poland’s beaches are threatened by global warming, warns sea researcher’ by Ludwika Tomala).

The artists film represents the culmination of a month-long residency in Poland, as part of the ‘TTT’ collaborative partnership, and is multi-linear in nature. Simultaneously it disseminates climate-based information related to the Polish Gdańsk delta, and its associated precarity in terms of recurrent flood-based events, catastrophic ‘surge’ rainfall scenarios and the potential for the water table to become salinated (Reagan Park, for example, is a location where 30 percent of all municipal water for the city is currently sourced and is liable to flood with oncoming storm surges) whilst connecting with academics from the University of Gdańsk, including Tomasz Besta, an associate professor at the Institute of Psychology. His research areas map across the analysis of intergroup relations, collective actions, radicalization and group dynamics.

Film: www.vimeo.com/robynwoolston/edgeland