English Channel, high tide iii (Copy)
South Pacific Ocean, low tide ii (Copy)
English Channel, low tide iii (Copy)
South Pacific Ocean, low tide i (Copy)
English channel, low tide, underside iii (Copy)
Caribbean ocean, high tide, underside iv (Copy)
English channel, low tide iii (Copy)
Eliza holding "As I listen I am led' book of seanotypes, London, 2024
South Pacific Ocean, low tide featured in "Beneath the Salt" (Copy)

SUDDENLY THE DARKNESS TURNED INTO WATER

Seanotypes made in attempted collaboration with the imagined mind of the world’s oceans.

I fantasised that the ocean might be akin to a developing tank, or unconscious mind: a hidden space of memory, image and form.

Working directly in the water, I gathered flotsam and jetsam onto light-sensitive paper, submerging the prints in the sea and leaving them to develop and dry in the sun.Part photographic process, part performance, the Seanotypes began as experiments in relinquishing control: allowing seawater, sunlight, found matter and chance to participate in making the image.

Residues of these encounters remain active within the photographs. Salt, seawater and photographic chemistry continue to work upon the paper, allowing the images to change over time — an acknowledgement of their aliveness rather than an attempt to hold them fixed.

Sunprint paper, seawater, 17.7 × 12.7 cm / 7 × 5 inches. Unique prints.

English Channel, UK; South Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea, Aotearoa New Zealand; Caribbean Sea, Mexico. 2012–17 

Selected works from the series featured and published in Beneath the Salt, Artist’s book, edited by Marianne Bjornmyr and Dan Mariner, Published by YONA Editions, 2017. Edition of 500.