© Courtesy Stephen Turner
In 2005, Stephen Turner led a quartet of artists on a merry walk on the Isle of Sheppey in an authority-commissioned adventure linking ideas of people and place.
Turner praised the “many knowledgeable people we met” – a wasp fancier, boozer landlords, fossil collectors on the hunt and retired bobbies among them – and returned with artworks fashioned from white cement, shells and concrete slabs.
Turner is an artist unafraid to get his hands dirty, almost literally diving into the Medway estuary for Sedimental, a project again supported by the area’s council which comprises an exhibition, installation, workshops and a series of public events investigating their coastal centrepiece.
He’s enlightened and inspired by the stretch, playing with geology, flora, fauna, hydrology and river archaeology, and inevitably winding up with a few environmental concerns about contamination.
Muddy clay and the latest digital technologies contribute to equal effect, telling the history of the river through sound collages and river maps.
- Open 10am-5pm (10.30am-5pm Sunday). Admission free.
