One And All, Somerset House

The One And All exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the National Trust's dedicated programme to care for England's coasts. In 1965, John Betjeman wrote of the many threats to our coast in his poem One & All, from where the exhibition's title is derived: our relationship with the sea affects us all. Two leading artists - Tania Kovats and Martyn Ware - have worked with filmmaker Benjamin Wigley to create an online digital film journey through poetry, sound and film.

The first room shows a changing vista taken from Wigley's exploration of the many coastal landscapes cared for by the National Trust. Here, a series of shores are seen one by one, and they all differ greatly. They all range from being very calm to loud and roaring. There isn't a lot of information to go on, but the cinematic presentation of it gives us a clear idea that there were a lot of perspectives involved in the making of this exhibition, and that a lot of personal care and feeling has gone into it.

The second room was home to Martyn Ware's What Does The Sea Say?. Ware has vivid childhood memories of outings to the seaside from his home in Sheffield. His involvement in One & All was a portable beach hut where members of public could write on the wood inside their personal feelings towards the beach and the sea. Because of these personal expressions, the beach hut almost reminds me of an untouched box, a box that must never be opened because it contains something of precious value. As such, childhood is something that is precious to all of us, and having your thoughts enclosed in a small, desolate beach hut seems ideal if you are to keep them safe.

Also present was Kovats' bronze bell, which she casted with the travelling foundry Ore + Ingot at the autumn equinox on Porthcurno beach, Cornwall. However, I didn't find it particularly interesting since I can't say a lot about a bell.

One & All is small. Because it's small though, it feels more like an intimate personal expression that is precious to a certain group of individuals. The only commission that I found to be just remotely intriguing was Martyn Ware's beach hut, because there's a strong sense of narrative and personal exploration involved. Although it is a free exhibition I wouldn't highly recommend it due to it's lack of deep content in most places.

Source:

National Trust, Tania Kovats, Martyn Ware, Benjamin Wigley (2015) One and All [exhibition], Somerset House, London, 6 Nov 2015