While Glides the Stream

Work in progress. The River Esk rises on the moors above the village of Westerdale, and meanders its way through the Esk Valley to join the North Sea in the town of Whitby.

The waterway provides a thread of continuity that joins the small settlements along its course. The river, which created the Esk Valley, can be seen as a vascular system for the land: carrying, filtering, nourishing, removing.

This work seeks to examine our relationship with the river – nature’s life-blood. It aims to reflect upon the river’s ecological, practical, social and spiritual value. It will engage with questions of ownership in relation to the natural world. 

“ It slips through cracks and gushes down hillsides; it falls from the sky and seeps up through the ground. As it reflects, it distorts: it dissolves definition, blurs distinction and spurns division. “
Nick Hayes