Losing Seahenge
Video originated on Super 8 film, 3min 30secs
Original sound composition by Frank Corcoran
This work uses a controversial bronze age burial ground as allusion to the potential advent of ecological disaster and annihilation. Timelapse filmed landscape shows the tide slowly covering a circle of timber stakes with a large central oak platform. As the tide rises, there are white flashes in the footage suggesting a change or disappearance of the world as we know it.
It is believed that this may have been a ‘sky’ burial site, one where the corpse is left on a wooden altar to be consumed by the birds and therefore continue a Spirit’s cycle back to the earth. The central plinth is the upside down root of an oak tree and is surrounded by 55 posts.
‘Seahenge’, as the site is unofficially known, was uncovered in 1999 by the rising tide which washed away the peat within which it was buried. It was then controversially moved from its 4000 year old home by English Heritage to Flag Fen, much to the anger of the Druids, who considered this a desecrational act. Clear tool marks have provided important information on Early Bronze Age wood working and construction methods. This is the first time that well preserved tool marks from a complete Early Bronze Age site have been be studied in Britain. The timbers are now on permanent display at the Lynn Museum and opened to the public in April 2008.
Losing Seahenge continues Graham’s exploration of sacred space, esoteric energy, and the positional awareness of humanity within the wider cosmos.
Soundtrack composed specially and performed by Frank Corcoran