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 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 disparate ideas. In this work Greene explores the power of any given landmass to evoke profound feelings about nationality, patriotism, identity and belonging and the flag’s catalysing role in triggering these thoughts and ideas. An examination of these 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 which can be seen at www.paulgreene.co.uk.

Paul Greene

2016

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