Chloë
Chloë is an interdisciplinary artist based in Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Her brother Joshua died in 2015. She has made several artworks about grief and the coast, including community dance project Tidal and installation piece This Endless Sea.
“The audience sobbed all the way through Tidal. They said things like, “Gosh, that was incredibly moving and I don’t know why.”
The performance started on the promenade and ended up on the beach. Children and adults together. And it finished with us walking into the sea with our arms around each other.
For practical reasons, we had to take off our shoes. I hadn’t thought about it until the dress rehearsal.
I’d been so desperate to do the project, but it was so complicated. The tagline was ‘celebrating the sea’ but my brother had just died in the sea.
One of his shoes was never found. And I suddenly realised there were all of these abandoned shoes on the beach.
I thought, maybe that’s too far. Too sad. But it’s too late now.
People still talk to me about it. I was in the post office the other day and the woman behind the counter saw I’d drawn some waves on an envelope. She said, ‘Still thinking about the sea?’
There’s always a question in Berwick: are you a local or you an interloper?
The sea is this constant, but it’s always in flux. Like our community. People are coming and going all the time.
Before Joshua, I definitely had the view of grief that someone died, you’re very sad, time goes on, you get less sad. It’s like a graph.
Of course, that’s not the reality. And I wanted to make something that highlighted the non-linear nature of it. The sea is the ultimate metaphor.
I loved the sea. I suppose I missed it when I lived away. But I didn’t think about it any more than that, really.
And then I suddenly had a different relationship with it.
“I wanted to make something that highlighted the non-linear nature of grief. The sea is the ultimate metaphor. ”
I ploughed myself into being busy. I needed something to get me through.
For a while, it felt like grief was the only thing I could make work about. I felt it so strongly. Like, it was in my body and I had to get it out.
I got the funding for Tidal in March and my brother died on 5th April. Someone said ‘Ring the Arts Council and give the money back. Cancel the project.’
But I needed something to get me through. I had to confront it. There’s no avoiding it.
I remember thinking, like ‘Someone has pulled the rug out.’
Life changed forever in just a couple of hours.
This Endless Sea is a six-screen film. I’m the only figure in it.
I’m writhing and falling. I have a buoy and I’m trying to push it down. I’m swimming.
It’s on a continuous loop to think about grief as this endless experience. And it’s different for different people. You can enter it at any point.
We wanted it to feel a bit like you were being sheltered from the storm watching it, so we built a coastal hut. Once you’re in there, you’re in there. No one’s going to walk in on you. It’s dark.
We made the hut grey. But it had these bright orange details: the flag; the pens for feedback. I was thinking about grief being visible and invisible.
It’s really important to me that it feels like the work is made with care and precision. It makes people feel like their experience is important.
You could see it right across town. Saying, ‘I’m here. Come in if you’re grieving. Your grief is welcome.’”