Coastal Architectures: Approaching documentary photography as a fluid and open form of storytelling that invites audiences to weave traces of culture and nature to explore permanence and loss in emergent places.

Ingate, Tom (2025) Coastal Architectures: Approaching documentary photography as a fluid and open form of storytelling that invites audiences to weave traces of culture and nature to explore permanence and loss in emergent places. In: Haunted Modernities: Present Pasts and Spectral Futures, July 16-18 2025, Falmouth University, Falmouth Campus. (Unpublished)

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Abstract / Summary

Background: I have been photographing the Cornish coastline for about three years, observing the conflict and retreat between tide, rock, human and animal. This documentary work is a record of the endless cycles of negotiation, defence, loss, exploitation and recovery of the Cornish coastline. Immediate tensions of land and water use are visible through current and historic infrastructures. These human structures are a framework for discussing water pollution, coastal erosion, land ownership and access to blue space. Change and time are themes throughout the work, deep geological time, ancient cultural practices and more immediate seasonal and tidal change.

Method: I have developed a photographic practice that uses telescoping history and embodied knowledge to identify past, present and future traces in the landscape. This practice of walking and feeling through place informs the image making and caption writing that creates images that have layers of woven stories.

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