A commission for Lumiere Light festival, Durham 2021 and screened inside The Count’s House folly.
The Fossilised Sea is about time, and the traces of the distant past, which are embedded in the present day. 325 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period, Durham was a tropical sea with coral reefs. The tectonic plate movements of the earth during deep time shifted the rock formations from the equator to their present position in the Northern hemisphere. Evidence of this former time can be found in beautiful fossils of corals and invertebrates embedded in limestone rock throughout Durham, and embedded in the limestone columns of Durham cathedral.
The video combines geological scans of different rock formations in quarries along the coast with detailed drawings of the fossils to evoke the former life of Durham. It was screened inside the Count’s House folly during the Lumiere light festival, Durham.