When I have seen the hungry ocean gain -
Not all art is meant to be eternal. Steve Messam chose to
involve hundreds of volunteers in building 18,000 sandcastles over a 2km
stretch of sand at St Bees, basing the number on his calculation of the time
it takes for the tide to go out and then come in again. There were not quite
enough volunteers to reach such a mighty target, but for a few hours the
beach looked amazing, with thousands of little red flags fluttering on the
top of the tiny, doomed construction, an image of the transience of all
human endeavour.
Steve is one of many artists chosen to be part of FRED
