Threshold Dwelling: Algae and Tufa, Will You Be More Successful Than Me?

Focused on encounters with more-than-human dwelling-places at the edge of the sea, this writing discusses home as a multispecies necessity which urgently requires living compassionately and thinking responsibly towards others in a binding commitment to the co-creation of liveable habitats. Exploring the place-specific and speculative practice-research activities which informed the making of an immersive sound and video installation, I address human presence in fragile sites in a densely populated, traditional British seaside location vulnerable to near-term inundation by sea-level rise from anthropogenic global heating. Examining how humans cohabit and participate in a shared environment, my artistic research pays particular attention to the ecological worlds along the shore as they blur and tangle with human infrastructure and projects. Through expanded notions of data-gathering, it considers how engaging with feminist ideas of care and noticing can help us apprehend both hidden and overlooked effects of ‘slow violence’ (Rob Nixon, Slow Violence: Environmentalism of the Poor, 2011: 2) in post-industrial coastal landscapes. Taking a multidisciplinary approach reveals the effects of carbon-intense social, cultural and political imaginaries on human occupation, while the subversive powers of practice research leave room for unexpected wonder at glimpses of persistence and resilience that inspire ways of reimaging co-dwelling in uncertain futures.