Andreas Angelidakis
Seawall
Can the border between land and sea become a habitable place?
Seawall considers the encroaching ocean and the ongoing discussion around climate change, coastal erosion, and the physical and political impact this has on a place. Andreas Angelidakis uses the human response to flooding through the invention of sea defense mechanisms to ask, ‘can the border between land and sea become a habitable place?’
Seawall is series of soft sculptures resembling concrete, designed as a new type of accropode (sea defence blockade), typically made to resist the effects of coastal erosion on the coastline. The work is a public sculpture, outside the gallery on its east side.
Andreas Angelidakis (born in 1968) lives and works in Athens. Trained as an architect, Angelidakis switches roles between artist, curator, architect and teacher. His multidisciplinary practice often focuses around the internet and the perceptive and behavioral changes it has brought about.
Inspired by Athens itself, Angelidakis’s work often deals with the notion of ruin, be it ancient, contemporary or imaginary. The ruin becomes a vehicle for a building’s unfulfilled potential, powered by emotional, psychological or historical hallucination. Angelidakis has consistently challenged the expected end-product of architectural practice by reversing the ‘representation to realisation’ sequence of the production of buildings. He often starts with an existing building, producing models, films, ruins, installations or alternative histories, blurring fact and fiction, and smoothing out the borders between the real and the virtual.
England’s Creative Coast
England’s Creative Coast is a landmark project between seven outstanding arts organisations. Seven new site-specific artworks by seven international contemporary artists – Andreas Angelidakis, Mariana Castillo Deball, Holly Hendry, Jasleen Kaur, Katrina Palmer, Pilar Quinteros and Michael Rakowitz – connects the coastlines of Essex, Kent and East Sussex from May to November 2021.
Curated by Tamsin Dillon, the Waterfronts series of works is in Margate, Folkestone, Hastings, Bexhill-on-Sea, Eastbourne, Gravesend and Southend-on-Sea.
