to make a
bed of silt
This installation imagines a bed of silt; a shipwreck that becomes a queer ruin.
An immersive dreamscape gathers textiles, beeswax, sound and projection, to bridge the gap between bodies in a Mary Rose fiction of queer desire.
You are invited to merge with this installation in an intimate interaction of physical touch and sensorial experience.
Rest your head on the silt mat pillow, and take a moment to sink into the silts of the solent, listening to its whispers.
To make a bed of silt was developed through Resonate (ii) - a 6 month residency and artist development programme with Play Office, led by Thomas Buckley.
Developing new work through experimentation of the intersection of heritage and innovation, this project culminated in the group exhibition In Touch, In Ruin at Aspex Portsmouth [2025]
To make a bed of silt dreams an alternative history of two sailors working on board the mary rose. drawing from the shift patterns on board the ship, in which men would work opposite shifts but share a sleeping space; the warm glow of horn-paned lanterns, light flickering; the protective quality of the silt, which preserved the part of the wreck and its contents that can now be seen within the museum.
It invites you into a narrative of desire, longing and distance, creating an environment to embody the story. it questions which stories are held in museums, in places, in bodies, in fragments.
This publication gathers fragments from our shared time in Resonate (ii): ideas, finished works, experiments, and processes woven together into a disjointed, collaged book. It acts both as documentation and as an artwork in its own right, a record of our collective and individual explorations. Created using a collection of folded posters the book is designed to be taken apart and rearranged, it invites touch, play, and reconfiguration much like the accompanying exhibition. Its form reflects the disjointed yet connected nature of our collaboration, a conversation that unfolded through making, reflection, and the shared development of work for 'In Touch in Ruin' at Aspex Gallery. What began as an attempt to record our time together evolved into an exploration of process, connection, and fragmentation, a living document that resists an end, open to being remade, extended and reinterpreted.
’Resonate ii’ - 2025 - Harry Payne, Hannah Buckingham, James Wylie
