EDGE Where Land Meets the Sea
September 26th 2026 - January 3rd 2027
EDGE
Where the Land Meets the Sea
26 September 2026 - 3 January 2027
Edge: Where the Land Meets the Sea is a major new exhibition exploring the fundamental connection between land and sea, and the vital role both play in sustaining life on our planet.
In an era of profound environmental change, Edge challenges conventional ideas of separation and presents the coastline as a dynamic zone of exchange, where rivers, soils and oceans converge.
Co-curated with The Land Gardeners, who presented the acclaimed exhibition SOIL at Somerset House in 2025, this ambitious, gallery-wide exhibition brings together modern and contemporary artists to examine these interconnected living systems, and their shared futures.
Inspired by Hastings Contemporary’s unique location on a shingle beach, Edge marks the first of two landmark exhibitions supporting the gallery’s mission to focus its exhibitions and public programme on ocean futures and sustainability. Its companion exhibition, Horizon: Where the Sea Meets the Sky, will open in autumn 2027.
The edge is a place where terrestrial and marine systems meet: where rivers transport the materials and histories of the land into the sea, and where complex networks of fungi, microbes, water, carbon and nutrients sustain interconnected forms of life.
Bringing together art and ecological research, the exhibition explores the human impact and processes that shape these environments, from biodiversity and regeneration to erosion, extraction and adaptation, revealing a powerful interdependency.
Through painting, photography, film, sculpture and installation, Edge invites visitors to explore these profound and often unseen connections, bringing together more than 40 works from artists.
Featured artists: Aimée Parrott, Andy Goldsworthy, Anya Gallaccio, Cedric Morris, Charmaine Watkiss, Cornelia Parker, David Nash, Duncan Grant, Emma Tennant, France Bourely, Frances Kearney, Gillian Wearing, Howard Sooley, Jem Southam, Jo Pearl, Lubaina Himid, Maggi Hambling, Mariana Heilmann, Mike Perry, Nancy Cadogan, Otobong Nkanga, Susie Hamilton, Tanoa Sasraku, Theodore Roussel, Thérèse Oulton, Wolfgang Tillmans.
Mike Perry, Plastiglomerate, Marloes Sands, Pembrokeshire National Park, Wales 2025, 60cms x 48cms
The artist found this lump of molten plastic jammed between two large boulders on a beach in Wales. Made from congealed plastic, rocks, shells, sand and detritus, these new ‘rock forms’ that look like multicoloured asteroids are created when plastic waste is subjected to extreme heat e.g from beach fires or natural disasters like forest fires. This ready-made object is an example of a new geological age and evidence of the power of nature to sculpt our world.
Site where Plastiglomerate was found, July 2025
Mike Perry, Round Up, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Wales
The photograph suggests we could be looking at a sun blessed hay field but it is farmland sprayed with Glyphosate, or Round Up as it is commonly known. This herbicide is designed to kill off weeds and unwanted pests and has become a common tool for farmers, councils and gardeners. There is evidence that it harms invertebrates, soil health and once it runs off into rivers and enters the sea it poses risks to marine ecosytems.