Longshore Drift
Ynyslas to Aberystwyth (Wales), 2009.
Commissioned as a launch event for ‘Living Landscapes’, an AHRC-funded, international conference on performance, landscape and environment.
Longshore Drift was a practiced manifesto for drifting on the edge. Starting on Ynyslas spit at the mouth of the Afon Dyfi, and moving southwards against the prevailing current of Cardigan Bay, Stephen and Simon Persighetti led a six-hour walk for twenty participants. C
onstrained, cf. Simon Pope’s ‘walk from east to west, from sunrise to sunset’, participant-walkers remained within visual contact of the shifting shoreline.
 From B(orth) to A(berystwyth). Across dunes, past pill boxes, over groynes and petrified trees, participants created an unnatural backwash: collecting, carrying, temporarily reversing the flow of edgeland material, before reconfiguring it below the promenade at Aberystwyth. Arriving in the town just before the ‘Living Landscapes’ launch, Stephen and Simon reflected on their journey in one of the first papers of the conference.
Images: Stephen Hodge, Aberystwyth University, Clare Qualmann, Simon Persighetti, Cara Brostrom.