‘Storm Past’ is part of a series of relief prints that explore the fragility of flooded landscapes and the lost villages along the Norfolk coast. This engraving focuses on Walcott, a coastal village in Norfolk near my home, a fragile and transient place, along a stretch of coastline eroding naturally and threatened by the North Sea and rising tides.
Walcott suffered severe damage from North Sea floods and storm surges in 1953, 2007 & 2013. In 2019, in an attempt to hold back the sea, the beaches at Bacton and Walcott underwent a sandscaping scheme, a major coastal management project designed to protect the coastline from erosion and flooding.
Strong winds in the autumn and winter of 2020 to 2021 blew a lot of the sand away. This shift in sand was expected, and the moving sand benefits beaches further along, including the beach I walk every day, thanks to longshore drift.
Coastal communities around the world face similar struggles with erosion, flooding, and climate change and it is a huge problem. So… what hope do we have of holding back the sea?
