Last modified on Mon 19 Jul 2021 02.37 EDT
At Walton on the Essex coast a group of ragged people with empty, staring eyes are standing just above the tide line, their feet tangled in seaweed. They have come ashore on the tip of the Naze peninsula, a low finger of land where, in 1720, a stone tower was built to warn mariners. They hold their tattered cloaks around themselves and seem to be waiting. Are they ghostly survivors of yet another village swallowed by the rising sea? Wonât anyone help them?
Future prophecy or simply a commemoration of the drowned village nine miles offshore, Nabil Aliâs powerful The Sea People sculpture greets us as we walk around this fascinating headland. After 200 miles (of the planned total of 500) walking the English coast, we have left Suffolk behind, gone deep into Essex and begun to understand why Beach of Dreams, this curious and idiosyncratic arts project that weâre on, is perfect for our times.