Vanishing Point in the UK

Focal Point Gallery and Metal announced this public art commission as part of Estuary 2021. Vanishing Point is a two-part installation comprised of a learning center located on Southend Pier and a floating sculpture moored in nearby waters. It considers how the plant life of the Thames Estuary has evolved and responded to a changing climate over millions of years, and how this knowledge might be used as a prediction for a nearing future.

Vanishing Point, an ambitious two-part installation, comprising of a learning center located on Southend Pier, and a floating sculpture moored in nearby waters considers how the plant life of the Thames Estuary has evolved and responded to a changing climate over millions of years, and how this knowledge might be used as a prediction for a nearing future.

While the earth currently supports approximately 415 parts of CO2 per million (the highest level recorded in human history), climate models predict that the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will reach one thousand parts per million before the end of this century if industrialized nations don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One thousand parts per million would match the level of CO2 found in geologic records during the early Eocene in the Cenozoic Era, around 50 million years ago.

Vanishing Point revisits Southend’s plant life during this period; a learning center on the Pier presents a place where visitors can discover more of the Estuary's flora through time, as filled with plants that inhabited during the Eocene, as well as those still present today. Viewable from the Pier and Southend shore, a mysterious new inhabitant emerges from the Estuary mud, rising and falling with the tides. A sculpture depicting the Nipa palm, a plant familiar to these waters from the Eocene era retakes its place, supported by scaffolding as if being regrown to support the future of the Southend.

Today, we can witness slow geologic time because the speed of change has increased so much that it can be recognized during a human's lifetime. By studying the fossil records of plants that faced major climate changes in the past, we can help interpret similar processes occurring today, as our community imagines the regenerative fauna for tomorrow.

Vanishing Point - Mary Mattingly from New Art Films on Vimeo.

Thank you to Katharine Stout, Hayley Dixon, and Michaela Freeman for guiding the project.