This sculpture focusses on the natural flora and fauna of the Black Rock site in Brighton and collages photogrammetry scans of elements found at the site and 3D digital models from the site’s history, from pioneering Victorian female seaweed collectors to contemporary re-wilding projects. Find out more about the different elements in Black Rock “Beachcombers: Nature” and try to spot them in the sculpture.
List of Elements
Glaucium flavum (Yellow Horned Poppy)
These beautiful Yellow Horned Poppy flowers are biennial or short-lived perennial plants with a dark side. They were 3D modelled from plants growing along the Black Rock beach.
Barnacles and Limpets Scanned from the Brighton Marina Sea Wall at Black Rock beach
The barnacles that cover the Brighton Marina sea wall are crustacea, related to crabs and shrimp. They are filter feeders and use specialised appendages called cirri to gain food from their environment, and as such are most commonly found in areas of high water movement. Their soft bodies are protected by tough, armoured plates and anchored tight to the substrate using a powerful glue-like secretion. Further plates form a “door”, or operculum, which the barnacle can open and close to prevent them from drying out.
Common limpets are the small cone-like shells that are often seen firmly clamped to the side of rocks in rock pools.
Seaweed photogrammetry scanned from the Mary Philadelphia Merryfield collection of dried seaweed at the Booth Museum in Brighton
Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (1804 – 1889) was a famous Brighton resident who lived at 2 Dorset Gardens. She was pioneer in multiple fields in a victorian male-dominated world. Merrifield was a specialist in Old Master Painting and colour pigments as well as a fashion historian. She wrote Dress as a Fine Art in 1854, and in 1864 wrote A Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton and its Vicinity and writing chapter IV “Algae” changed her life and started an obsession.
She subsequently became an expert in seaweed and had published in many scientific journals including the Annals of Botany and Journal of Linnaen Society as writing frequently for Nature. Seaweed collecting was a popular hobby for Victorian women in Britain, including Queen Victoria herself.
Discarded nylon rope
Bundles of seaweed, driftwood and other detritus often wash up on the beach tangled up with nylon rope which has been lost or thrown away at sea. Such plastics are a pollutant and can harm birds and wildlife as well as becoming microplastics that can be swallowed by fish and even enter the human food chain that way. The rope was 3D modelled from a sample beach-combed from the Black Rock beach. Each of the sculptures is wrapped with a different material.
Crambe maritima (Sea Kale)
Sea Kale has now been re-planted in a series of ‘wave’ design beds in the vegetated shingle at Black Rock. The unique design protects the young plants from harsh coastal conditions. As Sea Kale plants take five years to reach maturity the artists scanned plants a little further along the coast via the Undercliff Path towards Rottingdean. The same models are also used as part of the augmented reality app.
Driftwood
Sea-worn driftwood can be found all along Brighton beach especially after storms. The effect of the force of the sea on the knotty wood forms strange organic shapes. Each of the sculptures is based on different pieces of driftwood found on the Black Rock beach.