A Circular and Never-ending Ritual of Love to the Estuary (including Hope for the Future, Recipes for Action and a Call to the Blood) - Canvey

A guided walk in three parts devised by multidisciplinary artist Nwando Ebizie. The project as a whole positions itself as a folk horror story told in many parts, taking us on a mythic journey that both connects us to the land and its history, and encourages us to look inward. It invites us to see the land as a waste land, but also to see it in its beauty. The artist inspires us to gain a sense of ownership of this particular landscape through collective action. The project can be experienced through three audio walks – in Tilbury, Gravesend and on Canvey – and a live performance. Please see separate listing for the performance event details and booking information.

The audience will find an undulating artwork fixed on the ground to mark the start and end point of the walking experience. Using headphones, the audience will be guided by listening, walking and visioning in a ritual preparation towards action.

In the artist’s words, each of the audio walks is:

‘A guided visualisation

to draw people to the water

You are the vessel, the work will fill you and sustain you, hold you to help guide

Spoken, sung, played by the mythic creatures of this land

The stories returning

Rising up out of the mud

A magical place - feel the magic and the beauty

So much has been dumped

But it has endured and renewed

Now join in this renewal

You are an adventurer in a magical land

Folk Horror - so you’re seeing the things around us that we normalise and accept - for the horror that they are.’

Sound is a key element of these audio walks. Nwando uses sound in her work in a similar way to a film soundtrack - the sound might make audience members feel uneasy, and this chimes with the uncannyness, the characteristics of the landscape, and the mythical stories that inspired the project.

Nwando uses spatialised sound to help audiences feel the different qualities of the space they are walking into. Through experiencing the different layers of the spatialised sound, the listener almost has the sensation of being in multiple places at the same time.

This three-dimensional sound experience creates the ASMR tingles and shivers, and these connect deep in the nervous system.

The sound can at times come across as ghostly, to evoke the idea of ‘apparitions’, present in many of the mythical stories Nwando refers to.

By providing this film soundtrack ‘score’ the artist aims to encourage us to feel as the protagonists of our own story.

The three walks can be experienced individually, however, the artist conceived them as telling one story unfolding in the order below:

1.  Tilbury 
2.  Gravesend 
3.  Canvey Island 

Photo by Nwando Ebizie.