Wie ich an jenem Abend in Southwold so dasaß auf meinem Platz über dem deutschen Ozean, da war es mir auf einmal, als spürte ich ganz deutlich das langsame Sichhineindrehen der Welt in die Dunkelheit. [...] Weiter und weiter schaute ich hinaus auf das Meer, bis dorthin, wo die Finsternis am dichtesten wurde, und wo, kaum mehr zu erkennen, eine sehr seltsam geformte Wolkenbank sich erstreckte, die rückseitige Ansicht wohl des am Spätnachmittag über Southwold niedergegangenen Wetters. †
† W.G. Sebald, Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt
As I sat there that evening in Southwold overlooking the German Ocean, I sensed quite clearly the earth’s slow turning into the dark. [...] I gazed farther and farther out to sea, to where the darkness was thickest and where there extended a cloudbank of the most curious shape, which I could barely make out any longer, the rearward view, I presume, of the storm that had broken over Southwold in the late afternoon. †
† W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn: an English Pilgrimage, translated by Michael Hulse
North Sea
Shingle Street, United Kingdom
52°01′50.7″N 1°27′25.2″E
2019.10.22
The most abandoned spot in the entire region
W.G. Sebald
One and a half years later, at the end of October 2019, we left Düsseldorf again. This time to visit London. After one night, and a short coffee-driven morning tour through the Blue Mountain School, we were picked up by our coach. We had been invited to visit Ryan Gander in his studio in Suffolk, a two hour drive East. He’s one of numerous artists who left the city behind. Coincidently, or not, again we found ourselves just 8.4 miles away from the sea. At a place which W.G.Sebald passed through in his pilgrimage along the East Anglian coast. A dark picture made it into his book The Rings of Saturn, shrinking the white terraced houses against the vast empty shore. We came to walk where he walked, to see what he saw, to feel the cold wind and smell the sea. The sun was setting, leaving us behind with a sky aglow with colour – an unwanted antidote to the melancholic surrounding.
After being an uncivilised queue at The Golden Galleon, the local chippie, in the nearby town of Aldeburgh, we finished the day eating fish and chips at the beach under the stars.
Noordzee
Knokke, België
51°21′02.6″N 3°16′37.9″E
2017.02.08
There are places I would probably rather be. But I probably need to be here.
Marvin Gaye
During the class trip in February 2018 we left Bruges for a day to visit the Belgian coastal town of Knokke. Initially we wanted to visit the casino, not for gambling, but to see a piece of local art history – a 73 meter mural by René Magritte, het betoverde rijk, finished in 1953. It is a collage of his most iconic motifs and themes, filling the walls of the large circular room. Although he did not paint the walls himself, he often came by to instruct and direct his team to ensure the images matched his preconceived ideas. Moreover, he took advantage of the coastal setting. There’s only a small road separating the casino from the beach, where he would often walk. It is said that those walks brought inspiration for his iconic isolated clouds, which appear continuously as a background motif throughout the Knokke mural.
Just as Magritte, we found ourselves drawn to the shore. It’s impossible to stay so close to the sea without visiting it. We were fortunate with a crisp blue day, with the same isolated clouds Magritte loved so much developing above our heads. When setting foot on the sand there’s no way back, you have to continue walking until you reach the water. Standing there on the edge of the land, gazing at the endless blue. Nowhere else do you find more space for imagination.
Remco Reijenga