Relics of Estuarine Magic — Grace Emily Manning

Relics of Esturaine Magic

REM Relics of Estuarine Magic is an ongoing speculative archive exploring the landscape, ecology and folklore of the Swanscombe Peninsula and Thames Estuary.

The project imagines a future mythology of Swansula - a fantasy land grown from the peninsula - through a fictional museum collection of magical and ritual artefacts excavated from its landscape.

Made from found plastics, estuary plants, bones, thorns, roots, metals, seaweed and other gathered materials, the relics sit somewhere between archaeological objects, folk-magic tools and imagined technologies. Each is catalogued with its materials, physical description, use and meaning, building fragments of a belief system through which future communities navigate, heal, protect themselves and connect with the land.

Objects include the Sailing the Viels, Swansula Ritual Sailing Barge, the Anemoi Mundi Poppet and drawings for a Ceramic Infusion Vessel - artefacts from an imagined future in which the natural, synthetic, spiritual and industrial histories of the estuary have become inseparable.

REM 13 Drawing of Amulet, 2021
Pencil on cartridge paper

Swansula, Relics of Estuarine Magic, 2022
Bargehouse Gallery, Southbank, London

Sailing The Veils - Swansula Ritual Sailing Barge 2021
53 x 77 x 90 cm
Found plastic, bullrush, flint, sea grass root, deer bone, duck feather, hawthorn, blackberry thorn, rose thorn and hip, dogwood, thistle, recycled aluminum, copper and cotton, algae and bladderwrack seaweed bioplastic

Relics of Estuarine Magic, 2021
Fictional Digital Museum Archive

Original Artwork for digital background, 2020
Graphite Pencil

Anemoi Mundi Poppet on Element Brick

Object Type
Spiritual Navigation and Guidance; Divination

Dimensions
26 × 25 × 12 cm

Materials
Plastic, steel nail, seaweed, wax, bone, copper, brass, iron, rose fibre, glass and roots.

Physical Description
A poppet seated upon a plastic Element Brick, with four circular turrets marking earth, air, fire and water.

Use and Meaning
Used for independent meditation, in conjunction with the Swansula Compass, to aid spiritual navigation.

The poppet covers its eyes, signifying an openness to guidance through the elements and travel through the mind. Seated between earth, air, fire and water, the figure occupies the crossroads: a bridge between worlds.

The figure represents a wind deity and universal soul - a dual mother and mercurial goddess - with wing feathers carrying the colours of the four elements.

Before the figure sits a black seaweed candle used for uncrossing and protection, housed within a copper mask representing the self projected into the world. Removable pins can be lifted when drawing towards, or seeking connection with, particular elemental forces.

Alchemical Fountain of Rebirth, 2018.
Sketch for speculative Ritual Object

Drawing of Ceramic Infusion Vessel
Object Type
Drawing; Speculative Magic

Date
c. 2122

Dimensions
21 × 29 cm

Materials
Ink and graphite pencil on manufactured wood-pulp paper.

Physical Description
Four notebook pages containing studies for an ‘infusion vessel’, designed to administer herbal water distillations and medicines during collective meditation.

Use and Meaning
The drawings suggest the use of folk medicine and collective magic as a means of bonding communities to one another and to the land of Swansula.

The vessel has five mouth tendrils through which participants breathe vapours distilled from local flora. Imagined for use outdoors around an open fire, plant vapours collect within a copper horn before being distilled into tinctures.

Ceramic panels representing the elements surround the vessel, intended to maintain balance throughout the ritual.

Ritual reed paper for Swansula scripture - sample made with Bullrush seed heads collected from Swanscombe Marshes

Grace Emily Manning

Artist

Grace Emily Manning

Artist

Projects for Landscapes

Installation

Drawing

Painting

Moving Image

GEM Eco Studio

Relics of Esturaine Magic

Anemoi Mundi Poppet on Element Brick