Leah Fusco Artist in Residence at
Bexhill Museum
28 January - 15 December 2019
Northeye is a deserted medieval village in East Sussex, once an island on the southeast coast of England and a limb of the Cinque Port of Hastings. Scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar), the site now exists as reclaimed agricultural marshland. Alongside physical changes in the landscape, documentation of Northeye is fragmented through lost reports, inconclusive data and conflicting records. The extent and reach of the site is currently unknown, with the remnants visible as a series of shallow earthworks.
Through drawing, painting, animation and mapping, Leah has responded to Northeye on location, often using processes and materials orginating from the site itself. She has spent time with documents and artefacts at Bexhill Museum to unearth stories from the archive and to explore evidence of the deserted village. Past and present viewpoints are brought together, from archaeologists, farmers and water engineers to cartographers, walkers and livestock currently inhabiting the landscape, in a multilayered telling of Northeye’s story.
During her time at the museum, Leah will create a large-scale map with chalk collected from the site to draw the shifting coastline, reflecting over a thousand years of geographic change. Exploring the theme of reclaimation, the exhibition looks at the role of creative practice in bringing hidden, lost and abandoned places into public knowledge.
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28 January - 15 December 2019
Northeye is a deserted medieval village in East Sussex, once an island on the southeast coast of England and a limb of the Cinque Port of Hastings. Scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar), the site now exists as reclaimed agricultural marshland. Alongside physical changes in the landscape, documentation of Northeye is fragmented through lost reports, inconclusive data and conflicting records. The extent and reach of the site is currently unknown, with the remnants visible as a series of shallow earthworks.
Through drawing, painting, animation and mapping, Leah has responded to Northeye on location, often using processes and materials orginating from the site itself. She has spent time with documents and artefacts at Bexhill Museum to unearth stories from the archive and to explore evidence of the deserted village. Past and present viewpoints are brought together, from archaeologists, farmers and water engineers to cartographers, walkers and livestock currently inhabiting the landscape, in a multilayered telling of Northeye’s story.
During her time at the museum, Leah will create a large-scale map with chalk collected from the site to draw the shifting coastline, reflecting over a thousand years of geographic change. Exploring the theme of reclaimation, the exhibition looks at the role of creative practice in bringing hidden, lost and abandoned places into public knowledge.
