The Shipping forecast is broadcast daily on BBC radio.It is designed to alert seafarers to the dangers of the constantly shifting weather conditions that characterize the seas around the British Isles.
This relentless mutability can be seen as a metaphor for the UK itself where the cultural landmass is continually being shaped, reformed and re-aligned by the forces of rapid and striking change. In this work Greene explores our response to this change and how that response is conditioned by deeper ideas about nationhood and identity.
Each sea region is given its own, essentially arbitrary, Union Jack variant, underlining the oddly, tangential relationship between geography and culture. The fixed graphic identity of national flags can be seen as an oddly successful attempt to bond these two essentially disparate ideas. In this work Greene explores this oddness, the mysterious power the UK landmass has to evoke profound feelings about, nationality, patriotism, identity and belonging, and the catalytic role the Union Jack flag has in triggering these thoughts and ideas. An examination of this reflex response is a defining feature of this work.
The series Finisterre 1-5* is exclusive to Sedition and is an offshoot of this larger work The Shipping Forecast. Paul Greene
2016

*Finisterre (World’s End) is the old name for the sea region now called Fitzroy.