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The Ancient Mariner Big Read is a re-reading of Coleridge’s poem by celebrities with strong contemporary voices.  It is  “a brand new digital work of art to be experienced at home – in a wild voyage into the unknown and watery world” ultimately to include auditory accompaniment.  Two centuries ago Coleridge wrote this first modern work of literature to address the terror of isolation, for us a contemporary focus.  The reading brings to the fore the poem’s warning that we abuse nature at our peril, and the recognition that we humans and all other creatures are interconnected.

 

The Big Read and the exhibition Mariner is part of a Plymouth University project.  Currently it is closed but hopefully might re-open before the end of its run. The catalogue explains that film, photography, drawing, painting and sculpture all contribute to “a breath-taking journey of loss, grief and retribution”.  But, as with the poem there is also a final message of hope.  I am particularly intrigued and excited to discover in the show artists who are familiar to me: Lucy and Jorge Orta, Richard Wentworth, Ellen Gallagher etc.

 

I also have discovered so far only on line, other artists whose work seems to be closely allied to my own:  Angela Cockayne, who uses found objects from the environment to comment with humour on the human predicament within the natural world;

Nicola Bealing, whose paintings and prints reveal disturbing subject matter; and

Grace Schwindt who is influenced by reports of melting ice sheets and impending climate change.

It's easy.