Life/Death/Life
Forgotten travels, Jane Robb, 2022
It’s not only the point itself that cycles through birth-death-rebirth at Spurn. Things people once cherished, or at least used with purpose, often become stranded here. Having lived with us, their usefulness gone, ephemera are brought and buried by the tides. Eventually uncovered one day by a storm, discovered by a passer-by, do they live again?
Leading, Jane Robb, 2022
Spurn Point is a perfect location for a dérive, Guy Debord’s ‘technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances’ (1). I let myself drift through the terrain with little purpose other than to see what becomes of the land, where it goes, what is uncovered. The technique, part of a psychogeographic approach, lends itself well to exploring discarded or forgotten aspects of a place (2).
Drifting, Jane Robb, 2022
I think that one of the things that draws me back to Spurn is that it is full of rubbish. Similar to Ian Sinclair’s obsession with the Beckton Alp – a huge rubbish dump reclaimed as recreational space, its history unknown to visitors (3) – I find the intersection of a magnificent wildlife reserve juxtaposed with piles and piles of failed coastal management and human waste rather amusing and alluring. In line with Kirsten Seale’s interpretation of Sinclair’s ‘obscenery’, Spurn fits the term rather well: ‘the completely visible manifestation of what is normally segregated, managed and disposed of by disciplinary apparatuses’ (4).
Yet unlike the Beckton Alp, at Spurn the rubbish is periodically uncovered, revealing anew buried secrets.
Obscenery, Jane Robb, 2022
The forces that seek to unearth human follies of infrastructure on Spurn are the same that create the harsh environment that sits at the heart of the history of the peninsula. The cyclical storms bringing sand and sea to the point are the same that set the conditions for both life and death.
At every scale, although there are some things that might be better off covered up by the sand, there is also life that fights to remain above.
Fighting for life, Jane Robb, 2022