Slow Wave Trail

Slow Wave Trail an exhibition of new environmental works by Eleanor Rose Cully Boehringer and Jorge Boehringer opened above The Bound bookshop in Whitley Bay 18:30 June 20th.

The Monday evening opening event featured a performance from Kneeling Coats (Jorge and Eleanor) and Craig Stewart Johnson, solo.

The exhibition featured numerous new works composed either by Eleanor or Jorge but in most cases by both. Many made sound. Others defined or suggested ambiguous spaces for contemplation.

In the gallery accompanying this post images of the works can be found to the extent to which they were photographable.

There is also a map showing where in the space the pieces were installed, and this is included in the selection of photos accompanying this post.

The titles of the works were:

skirt

blind

catalog

island

border volume

hide

cinema (after a.b. linger)

synonym

slow waves

shelf

traces

gorse feathers

‘Leave no trace’ is a motto for wilderness ethics so often quoted that it has even found itself in a corporate logo used to sell plastic outdoor equipment. Slow Wave Trail presents another take, bridging worlds both urban and rural.

Slow Wave Trail developed from treading lightlyup and down the Newcastle and Northumberland coast and across the Scottish Borders. Since moving to Newcastle upon Tyne in January 2021, Eleanor and Jorge have been exploring these landscapes on foot, observing how trails and time unfold around the walker. When turning back and observing the way they have past, the walker finds they have left a trace: a trail of experiences through the landscape. On the other foot, facing forward, the environment leaves its traces on us; the walker moves through the landscape as through a hall of mirrors.

Jorge and Eleanor are interested in how these traces find their way into our senses of time, into our perceptions of the environment, and the role that attention to the edges of our senses, in particular to listening, play in this. Slow Wave Trail brings insights from our walks: ecologies of feeling, thinking, and dialogue with and within our environment. In response to the invitation to create an exhibition at The Bound bookshop, we have turned our experiences outside in: upstairs, we have found, left behind, or incised an exhibition of traces, some heavy indeed, but most very fleeting.