WEEKEND TIMETABLE
THURSDAY
- Promenade and Sea Like a Mirror: Launch Event
Music, film, poetry, food, bar: 7- 10:30pm. Location K
Booking required: https://superculture.org.uk/whats-on/
Join us to celebrate the launch of the Promenade Weekender and Sea Like a Mirror with an evening of music and words inspired by the sea.
A poetry reading by Beth Calverley and watery words from Rhyme Against the Tide, with live music from Gold Valley Bench, and Magpahi.
- Beth Calverley: Please get this poem wet
Commissioned poem written in response to Sea Like a Mirror + other sea poems. Beth Calverley will soothe you, sway you and splash you with a selection of conversational poems, written in, on, and near the sea. Some of these poems were created with Paddle Out protestors, Weston Marine Lake swimmers, and Weston General patients, while some were created in solitude with the sea.
- Rhyme Against the Tide
Poetry readings from RATTS poets; Richard Thomson, Henri Lang, Colin Taylor, Malcolm Rodgers, Sophie Shepherd.
Rhyme against the Tide (RATT) is a lively and friendly poetry slam making waves in Weston since 2021.
Richard Thomson
Richard’s poems have entertained audiences at poetry slams all over the region. He won the 2025 Exeter City Slam, was a finalist at the 2025 Bristol Lyra Poetry Festival slam, and will be representing Exeter and Devon at the 2025 Slamovision competition in Dublin.
Henri Lang
Henri Lang is a therapist and poet fascinated by what is beyond, or other than human. Her poetry explores the potential of myth, dreams, landscape and creatures to bring humour and insight to the ridiculously tricky business of being human.
Malcolm Rodgers
Malcolm has been writing on and off for the best part of fifty years. He is renowned for the use of observation and humour in his work. Malcolm has the honour of being the inaugural winner of the Rhyme Against the Tide Poetry Slam back in 2021.
Colin Taylor
Colin was recently part of the winning Weston team at this year’s South West Poetry Showdown at the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival. He is “just a guy who loves poems….poems that saved my life”.
Sophie Shepherd
Sophie is a Weston-based performer of many different things, including poetry. She organises and hosts the Rhyme against the Tide poetry slams.
Ana Salote
Ana is a writer, environmentalist and joint editor of the Welcome to Thrutopia substack. - Ivan Morison: White Horses
A new 16mm film portrait of the sea and the nation’s coast, bringing together six diverse locations, each linked by the lifeboat station at the centre of their community. Produced through a series of visits to lifeboat stations and seaside towns around the coastline, and in close collaboration with those who hold a deep connection to the water, the work explores the sea’s innate duality as a place of wonder and peril, and the myriad roles it plays for coastal communities.
- Gold Valley Bench
One day on a bench in Weston can be a mirror of eternity…..music and songs written in Weston, for Weston by musician Daniel Potter.
- Magpahi
Magpahi is the haunting and enigmatic musical project of songstress, synthesist and visioner of storytelling Alison Cooper – known for her distinctive vocal style and fluid use of both acoustic and electronic sounds. Her work delves into personal stories and connections between landscape, folklore, and human experience, often drawing inspiration from archival material to reimagine historical narratives in a modern light.
FRIDAY
- UCW Film & Media Arts Production, BA showcase
Film & media: 11am – 1pm. Location K
A selection of student projects developed as part of an experimental media module in response to Sea Like a Mirror across film, and image in dialogue with the sea.
BA (Hons) Film and Media Arts Production is a practical, project-based course that offers students the opportunity to develop their creative, technical and professional skills, specialising in a range of practices across Film, Photography, Audio and Media Arts.
- Ivan Morison: White Horses
Film screenings, daily: 2-3pm / 5-6pm / 8-9pm. Location K
A new 16mm film portrait of the sea and the nation’s coast produced through a series of visits to lifeboat stations and seaside towns around the coastline, and in close collaboration with those who hold a deep connection to the water. The work explores the sea’s innate duality as a place of wonder and peril, and the myriad roles it plays for coastal communities. - Simone Marconi:Tidal Leads
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Deep-listening trail: 6-6:45pm. Meet at K and walk to I
Tidal Leads is a collective act of subtle, silent resistance against erosion – erosion that makes us doubt our need for community, forcing us to adhere to fast-paced societal patterns.
The audience is invited to join a group deep listening walk exploring feelings we often prefer not to acknowledge through interventions and encounters that employ Weston’s promenade as a backdrop. The audio collaboration with Andrea Venanzoni ponders the inherent ephemerality of being and existing in a somewhat precarious realm.
Taking you on an intimate pilgrimage into subaqueous lands, Tidal Leads is a portal into meters below the reflecting water, where an almost parallel universe that doesn’t quite feel right hides.
This walk connects with a new soundwork available to listen to all weekend, and a LTD edition chapbook accompanying the work, available at the Promenade info hub. - One Minute Experimental Sea Films
Film screening: 7 – 7:45pm. Location K
From the sea, to the sand, to the tide, to the land and the people – what can you see, hear, capture, reveal, and communicate in just one minute? A screening of one minute films of the sea captured by Westons’ people and communities.
SATURDAY
- Mudlarks & The Supermares
Talk & Open Group Swim: 10 / 11am. Location K (talk), G (swim)
Discover the inspiring work of the Mudlarks — a dedicated volunteer group acting as guardians of Marine Lake in Weston-super-Mare. As a community interest company (CIC), the Mudlarks support a wide range of lake users, including walkers, photographers, paddleboarders, swimmers, paddlers, and gardeners. Through fundraising and advocacy, they work to protect and enhance this much-loved local spot. Also join a communal swim with the Supermares, Super Synchro, and Winter Warriors — welcoming and informal groups for anyone interested in sea or lake swimming as a way to connect with others in the Weston area.
- Simon Hamlyn: Tide Log – Drawing the Seafront
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Activity: 11am-1pm. Location – meet at K
Join artist and illustrator Simon for a guided drawing activity along Weston’s seafront. Focussing on quickly recording and documenting figures in space, time-limited drawing exercises will assist in being present within the landscape and attentive to the activity occurring around you. See his sketchbook records of Weston exhibited along the promenade walkway from Knightstone to Birnbeck Pier.
Bring your sketch book and pens/ pencils!
- Melanie Stiddolph: The next dawn, the next spring
Film screening & in conversation: 12:30-1:30pm. Location K
A film made with twelve women, singing their songs to the sea—songs composed from their own words by choir leader Claire Ingleheart. Filmed at dusk and dawn around the tidal rock pool at Newtrain Bay, Trevone, Cornwall, the project seeks to give voice to unheard experiences and carve out space for joy. The next dawn, the next spring grew from a desire to create a space for women navigating the struggle to have children, and for those who are childless not by choice. The film is followed with an in-conversation with the artist about the creation of the work and the sensitive issues raised.
Part of a series of ‘Good Grief Weston’ events, enabled by the Coastal Communities & Creative Health programme.’
- Swamp Woman: Mud Market
Activity: 1-5pm, parade 5:30. Location G
Swamp Woman returns from the depths to host a Mud Market, offering mud-inspired crafty produce and initiation activities for those curious about what it is to become a Swamp Woman. Join them for sigil-making to empower the change, free-flow writing, mud body drawing, and collaborative banner making.
The day culminates in a sensory movement class and communal parade that celebrates the mud between our toes as they wade into the Severn waters of the Marine Lake—an embodied dive into joy, mess, and transformation.
Swamp Woman was initiated by artist Kayle Brandon, with the Kitchen Table Art Club, commissioned for Promenade 2023.
- Ivan Morrison: White Horses
Film screenings: 2-3pm / 8-9pm. Location K
A new 16mm film portrait of the sea and the nation’s coast, bringing together six diverse locations, each linked by the lifeboat station at the centre of their community. Produced through a series of visits to lifeboat stations and seaside towns around the coastline, and in close collaboration with those who hold a deep connection to the water, the work explores the sea’s innate duality as a place of wonder and peril, and the myriad roles it plays for coastal communities. - Tracing the Shoreline on 16mm Film with Matt Davies & Vicky Smith
Workshop: 2-4pm. Location – meet at K
Join experimental film artists Matt Davies and Vicky Smith to make a 16 mm cameraless film along Weston’s coastline. Using physical contact methods of pressing and rubbing lengths of film onto the natural features of the Weston shoreline, you can capture the traces, rhythms and energy of the sea and the textures of the coast. No experience necessary, materials provided.
The film created during the workshop will be projected at the evening event.
- Chloe Walker: Salt Craving Skin
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Dance performance. 6-6:20pm. Location G
Selkies are mythical beings, they shapeshift between a seal and human form by taking off their seal fur. What can Selkies teach us about our connection to Weston Marine lake?
This experimental audio collage weaves together interviews with local swimmers, site-specific soundscapes, and elements of dance and movement, to explore the magnetic pull of the sea and the transformative potential of Weston’s marine lake.
An exploration of the beating heart of Weston through sound and dance, Chloe creates a sensuous exploration and celebration of our relationship with the lake. An attempt to dismantle ocular-centrism when discussing our intimate relationship with the sea to open our minds and embrace the animalism of a selkie whilst maintaining our responsibilities as human beings.
Join Chloe for a connected site-specific dance performance at Marine Lake North (location G) on Saturday, 6-6:20pm.
- Films of the Sea in 16mm
Film screening event: 7 – 9:30pm. Location K
An evening of 16mm films from Ivan Morison and members of artist collective Bristol Experimental Expanded Film.
Booking required: https://superculture.org.uk/whats-on/- 16mm workshop screening
View film created during the afternoon workshop on a 16mm projector, alongside films created by the artists.
- Matt Davies: Grit (2021), 16mm B&W film with optical sound
Grit documents an 18 mile walk along Chesil Beach in Dorset, in which the film- maker takes a single frame every 12 steps in order to capture the entirety of the walk/beach within a 100ft roll of 16mm film.
- Vicky Smith: Deliquesce (2022)
Made on Southsea beach, the artist uses visual metaphor to explore concerns about coastal pollution. The film is part of a series of self portraits in which the artist represents her body as unruly. In this case, the sea is a medium that entangles Smith in seaweed, bubbles and reflections of sunlight, and as described by the title, the artist’s body and hair becomes somewhat liquid. Commissioned by Aspex with support from Victorious Festival.
- Ivan Morison: White Horses (2025)
Film screenings, daily: 2-3pm / 5-6pm / 8-9pm. Location K
A new 16mm film portrait of the sea and the nation’s coast, bringing together six diverse locations, each linked by the lifeboat station at the centre of their community. Produced through a series of visits to lifeboat stations and seaside towns around the coastline, and in close collaboration with those who hold a deep connection to the water, the work explores the sea’s innate duality as a place of wonder and peril, and the myriad roles it plays for coastal communities. - Laura Phillips: Gull Yellers and Noise Dwellers (2025)
16mm film commission in response to Birnbeck Pier
A reimagining of Birnbeck Island’s acoustic past—gull cries, crashing waves, sudden bangs, dodgers and wheezers. A powerful collision of history, sound, and image.
A newly commissioned expanded film performance inspired by Birnbeck Island, early cinema (biocopes), and the experimental technologies once tested in Weston-super-Mare and across the Bristol Channel. This immersive experience delivers a visceral, audiovisual exploration of the region’s layered history.
Crafted using hand-processed 16mm film, the performance combines live manipulation of lenses, light, and media with a live experimental soundtrack—comprising noise, field recordings, and radiowaves.
Phillips draws influence from the island’s lesser-known industrial and military past—far beyond the pleasure cruises. This includes the “gull yellers,” who were once employed to ward off birds from sprat fishing nets, and the clandestine research chronicled in The Wheezers and Dodgers: The Inside Story of Clandestine Weapon Development in World War II by Gerald Pawle. During WWII, Birnbeck Pier served as a secret site for the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development.
The performance is further informed by Birnbeck island’s view of Flat Holm Island (Ynys Echni), a site of historical military and technological significance. In 1897, Guglielmo Marconi made history here by transmitting the world’s first wireless message over open sea—“Are you ready?”—to Lavernock Point, 3.7 miles away, with the help of engineer George Kemp.
This performance contains live sound and visuals, loud noise and flashing imagery.
- 16mm workshop screening
SUNDAY
- Super Culture Youth Theatre
Performances: 10:30am – 1:30pm. Location K
Booking required: https://superculture.org.uk/whats-on/
A series of playful performances devised by Super Culture’s Youth Theatre told through storytelling, music and play in celebration of childhood, and in response to 200 years of the RNLI, SLaM & Promenade.
10:30 – 10:50am Grandad and the Lost Mermaids – by 4-6 year olds
Great, Great, Great Grandads diary has been found. Join the group as they journey under the sea meeting mermaids, pirates and finding adventure together to create a magical tale woven finto a story for Weston.
11:45 – 12:15pm Totally Shipwrecked – by 7-11 year olds
Shipwrecked, Lost and… in Love? One woman finds herself washed up on Weston’s beach, only to then end up in an incredibly confusing love triangle. A chaotic and explosive take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
1- 1:30pm No Man Is An Island – by 12-16 year olds
A terrible storm leaves a crew shipwrecked on Steep Holm. What they discover upon the island is something that cannot be explained. Get taken on a journey of magic, discovery and adventure, with this wonderful story loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
- Cleaner Coastlines: Water Quality + Postcards to the Sea
Informative activity: 12 – 2pm. Location I
Curious about Weston’s water? Want to find out more about water quality, sewage pollution and how we can all help? Join local activists Cleaner Coastlines for a water quality demo and write a postcard to the sea.
- Chapter One: Gaia’s Ark
Poetry performance: 3:30 – 4pm. Location K
Imagine the year 2100 and the world’s oceans rising to flood all continents. Gaia sends forth her ark to rescue survivors from the seven continents, yet they have to acknowledge our mistakes before hope is restored. This futuristic spoken/choral performance provokes the imagination and ideas about the environmental challenges we face. Gaia’s Ark is devised, written and presented by Weston’s creative writing group Chapter One.
- Ronnie Houselander & Rowan Colquhoun: Would you still love me if I was a bird?
Performance: 4:30 – 5pm. Location A + live-streamed online via the Birnbeck Pier webcam
A lo-fi performance intervention exploring the interspecies entanglement of humans and seagulls. Through movement, mimicry, and costume, it reflects on coastal life through acts of scavenging, resilience, and coexistence.
The DIY seagull heads by Ronnie and Rowan take flight from Seagull Boy—a chimeric character born at Promenade 2023. This new Weston-grown mythology perches between human and gull, inviting us to see our feathered friends in a new light.
A tongue-in-cheek paste-up poster exhibition reimagines Weston’s gulls as swaggering locals—strutting, and lounging in their Converse All Stars in familiar spots. Installed on the Birnbeck Pier graffiti wall, the work is a witty collision of street art and seaside folklore.
ARTWORKS ALL WEEKEND
- Caitlin Dawkes: Frond
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Artwork. Locations I, G
Frond is a site-specific, sculptural textile installation that explores the sea as a place of comfort and connection. Crocheted from bin bags and other tactile materials, the work takes visual inspiration from the seaweed that gathers along Weston’s shoreline. Shimmering metal fragments are embedded within the sculptures like barnacles or charms, stamped with written reflections, memories, and quiet observations gathered from local voices to capture the emotional and sensory experiences of coastal life.
Frond embraces change and imperfection as the sculpture responds to the natural environment. As both a tactile object and communal archive, the work invites viewers to pause, reflect, and reconnect—with the landscape, with one another, and with the sea’s quiet, grounding presence.
- Simon Hamlyn: Tide Log
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Artwork. various locations along the Promenade walkway
Tide Log is a collection of sketchbook drawings created on location at the north-end seafront of Weston-super-Mare. Working in this way, the artist aims to chronicle public spaces and their usage through direct experience, whilst recording how the seafront continuously reconfigures itself. Scattered along the promenade walkway, attached to lamposts, these at-a-distance, yet intimate drawings of people and place are presented adjacently to their original locations offering traces of recent moments passed.
- Simone Marconi:Tidal Leads
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Soundwork: Accessed any time on this link – bring headphones. Location K to A.
Interventions along the Promenade as part of the work.
LTD edition chapbook accompanies the work, available at the Promenade info hub.
Tidal Leads is a collective act of subtle, silent resistance against erosion – erosion that makes us doubt our need for community, forcing us to adhere to fast-paced societal patterns.
The audience is invited to join a group deep listening walk exploring feelings we often prefer not to acknowledge through interventions and encounters that employ Weston’s promenade as a backdrop. The audio collaboration with Andrea Venanzoni ponders the inherent ephemerality of being and existing in a somewhat precarious realm.
Taking you on an intimate pilgrimage into subaqueous lands, Tidal Leads is a portal into meters below the reflecting water, where an almost parallel universe that doesn’t quite feel right hides.
Simone will be leading a deep-listening trail on Friday 6-6:45pm.
- Ronnie Houselander & Rowan Colquhoun: Would you still love me if I was a bird?
Poster artworks. Location – Birnbeck Pier graffiti wall (bottom of steps)
A tongue-in-cheek paste-up poster exhibition reimagining Weston’s seagulls as swaggering locals—strutting, and lounging in their converse all stars in familiar spots. Installed on the Birnbeck Pier graffiti wall, it’s a witty collision of street art and seaside folklore. Go see relating performance at Birnbeck Pier, on Sunday 4.30-5pm.
- Beth Calverley: Please get this poem wet
Site-specific poem. Location J
Commissioned poem written in response to Sea Like a Mirror + other sea poems. Beth Calverley will soothe you, sway you and splash you with a selection of conversational poems, written in, on, and near the sea. Some of these poems were created with Paddle Out protestors, Weston Marine Lake swimmers, and Weston General patients, while some were created in solitude with the sea.
Beth Calverley is a Weston-based writer, Poet in Residence for University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust, and founder of The Poetry Machine @poetrymachine
- Chloe Walker: Salt Craving Skin
Emerging Artist Micro Commission
Sound work. Accessed any time on this link – bring headphones. Location G.
Selkies are mythical beings, they shapeshift between a seal and human form by taking off their seal fur. What can Selkies teach us about our connection to Weston Marine lake?
An exploration of the beating heart of Weston through audio collage and dance, Chloe creates a sensuous exploration and celebration of our relationship with the lake. An attempt to dismantle ocular-centrism when discussing our intimate relationship with the sea to open our minds and embrace the animalism of a selkie whilst maintaining our responsibilities as human beings.
This performance connects with a new soundwork available to listen to all weekend.
- Jen Green & Tina Hitchens: Untold Skies
Sound work. Location start at I, end at A
Accessed here or via QR Code – bring headphones
An immersive sound work created with local people for a walk along the seafront, with recordings, music and poetry offering a salty perspective on the landscape, and a sensory experience of Weston’s edgelands. Originally commissioned for Promenade 2023.
- Phil Owen & Sam Francis: A Ballad of Anchor Head Cove
Sound work. Location F
Accessed here or via QR Code – bring headphones
An audio piece exploring the histories of the cove through the stories of a swimmer, a song, and memories of a former hotel. Originally commissioned for Heritage Open Days, 2020.
- Tania Kovats: Holm
Sculpture. Location I
Steep Holm Island is a remote nature reserve in the Bristol Channel visible from the cove. A white concrete sculpture replicates the landmass in miniature.
Originally commissioned for Wonders of Weston, 2010.
- Amy Butlin: Over Old Ground
Window text. Location B
Window based texts acting as remnants of a former installation investigating the sites of two bronze age barrows located on Weston’s hillside, explored through walking the network of pathways between these two points. Originally commissioned for Promenade 2023.
Sea Like a Mirror
At the heart of Sea Like a Mirror, is a newly commissioned artwork, White Horses, by Ivan Morison, from the collaborative practice of Heather Peak and Ivan Morison. Commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), it is inspired by the profound legacy of their life-saving work and the special status its volunteer crews occupy in the collective consciousness of our island nation.
This new 16mm film, housed within a unique, custom-made tent, will tour to six coastal towns to immerse audiences in the stories of RNLI crew and local people from around our coastline. Accompanied by an original score from composer Chris Hope, the film presents a multifaceted portrait of the sea and the nation’s coast, bringing together six diverse locations, each linked by the lifeboat station at the centre of their community.
Produced through a series of visits to lifeboat stations and seaside towns around the coastline, and in close collaboration with those who hold a deep connection to the water, the work explores the sea’s innate duality as a place of wonder and peril, and the myriad roles it plays for coastal communities.
Film screenings, daily: 2-3pm / 5-6pm / 8-9pm. Location K