Peter Britton

The Ghost Ships and Tides exhibition, consisting of 25 seawater processed, large format black and white framed images and a video installation, is on in the White Walls Gallery in Swansea National Waterfront Museum until mid July ’23.

The coastline of South Wales has a concealed history.  

 A history of tragedy and death.  

 A history of lives lost at sea. 

The treacherous waters of the Bristol Channel have long been navigated by waterborne vessels and on many a gale driven night or fog laden morning, many of these vessels have foundered on rocks unseen. This work investigates the history of these shipwrecks. The work also inspects the landscape that caused these catastrophes, in particular Tusker Rock and the coastline of South Wales. Tusker Rock is a submerged reef that sits in the middle of the Bristol Channel. The 500m rock is only visible at low tide and is a notorious hazard for ships and as such it is scattered with maritime skeletal remains. 

This is a visual story of a treacherous history. A story of foundered ships. A story of submerged doom. A story of pirates. A story of pillars of rock that smashed wood and bent metal.  

This is a legacy for the stuttering candles extinguished by the sea.