Acclaimed award-wining contemporary visual artist and School of Music and Fine Art Lecturer, Adam Chodzko, is one of the exhibiting artists in Points of Departure (part of Estuary 2016) with a new commission as part of an ongoing project which will result in a video and sculpture installation in Tilbury Cruise Terminal. Estuary is a biennial arts festival celebrating the Thames Estuary from 17th September – 2nd October 2016. The artworks presented reflect themes of arrival, departure, migration, trade, connection and nationhood via the estuary out to the wider world.

His work Ghost is described thus:
a kayak; a sculpture as vessel, coffin, bed, costume and camera rig. It is designed to ferry people to the ‘island of the dead’, with a rower at the back, and the passenger lying down low and flat in the front, like a body in a coffin with their head slightly raised, travelling along the interface between water and sky. A camera, mounted on Ghost’s deck, records each unique voyage, the passengers’ point of view, from across its bows. The video archives from multiple journeys along four previous Ghost passages (The rivers Swale, Tamar, Tyne and Thames) here joins new video footage made this summer from the Essex Ghost voyages made by a group of estuarine insomniacs, to be shown alongside Ghost itself, held suspended in the Tilbury Cruise Terminal.

Chodzko’s art explores the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour. Exhibiting internationally since 1991, he works across media, from video installation to subtle interventions, with a practice that is situated both within the gallery and the wider public realm.

Points of Departure runs from 17 to 30 September, 11.00 to 16.00 daily (closed Sat 24 September) at venues in Gravesend and Tilbury. More at www.estuaryfestival.com