Soundings from the Estuary

The exhibition included photographs, video works with soundscapes, other sound pieces, and Germander’s word pieces (presented as recordings to listen to in the gallery, live readings, and written displays).

Events as part of the exhibition included Germander's live readings and background talks, a radio show on Resonance FM presented by the architects Amenity Space, and a talk/discussion held at the Tate Modern, with guests Michael Edwards from the Bartlett School of Architecture, the writer/commentator Patrick Wright, and Sheppey historian David Hughes.

The exhibition was featured on Guardian Online, with some of Frank's photos and a recording from Germander:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/audio/2008/jun/18/thames.estuary

and reviewed in a podcast by Jonathan Glancey:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/interactive/2008/jun/30/ architecture

Germander's booklet containing all her pieces, plus generous background information, is still available, direct from Germander for £8 + £1.50 - please e-mail to arrange a copy.

Germander Speedwell's work for the Soundings from the Estuary exhibition:

For Soundings from the Estuary, Germander has been ferreting on foreshores, poring over pilot maps, quizzing twitchers, apprehending historians, and intercepting the internet for information – both old and new, formal and local – and has arranged her findings in a Germanderly manner into pieces on the following subjects (a few sample lines are given):

The Rise and Fall of the Lower Hope

Physical features in and along the Thames Estuary, and their names

Islands and inlets, settlements and sandbanks, towns and attractions, including some lost due to erosion or human intervention, and some newly created by development. Names both ancient and modern are included, from those found on maps and on location, to nicknames used only by locals.

“...Fleets, creeks, guts and gores

Bights, banks, hithes and havens

Dozens of Hundreds

And the Lathe of Scray…”

Sightings and Soundings

Avian activity in the Thames Estuary

Bird life and bird sounds, and their human interpretations and descriptions. Including local bird names and nicknames, the language of birdwatchers, and the reporting of sightings in bird hide record books and on birdwatchers’ websites.

   “...Avocet egg watch

  Pipits on pit-stops

  Godwits on slipway

  And ducks flushed from ditches…”

The How, What, Where and Why of Hoo

The Hoo Peninsula of Kent on the Thames Estuary is surprisingly remote and unknown for somewhere so close to London. In response to finding the same limited, and sometimes inaccurate, information about the area constantly repeated, Germander has collected the lesser-mentioned minutiae of Hoo – its hidden institutions, industries, agriculture and histories, names of places, houses and characters, and re-asserted the correct meaning of its enigmatic name!

  “...Mudflats to saltmarsh to cliff of chalk ridge

  Launching of seaplanes and assembly of airships

  Summer walkers, overwintering waders

  Spring onions year-round and autumnal intermittents…”

Loadings and Landings

Shipping activity in the Thames today

The curious and multifarious items, from rubbish to richnesses, which are conveyed via the Thames today, as well as the grand, evocative or curious names of vessels and ships that transport them, and their journeys, locally and internationally.

  “...Ballast and bitumen, cement clinker and gypsum

  Pallets of bricks and waste silt for landfill

  Sand to Battersea, dredgings to Greenwich

  Crushed rock to Dagenham Dock

  And gravel to the Isle of Grain….”

All pieces © Germander Speedwell 2008. Design and formatting by Stephanie Thomson.  

All the above, together with full and detailed background information, are available in a booklet from Germander - see above for details.

This work is ongoing, and Germander welcomes any extra information or suggestions related to her research – contact g.speedwell@yahoo.co.uk (please write Soundings From the Estuary in the subject heading).