The Wake

Catherine Chinatree is a painter, recently inspired by the daily ritual of bathing in the sea at the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool in Margate. “The ecstatic response of submerging in the water, the ecstasy vs fear of taking yourself out of a comfort zone, to expose the body to the natural element of very cold water, can be emotional, spiritual and physical”. 

Peter Nicholls is a British/Seychellois researcher, writer and creator from Margate. His work explores oceanic history and underwater cultural heritage. He has traced sunken slave ships in the Thames estuary including Thanet waters, exploring their meanings as sacred underwater sites. 

This mural gives reference to the wake – a lasting trail of turbulence and a realm of consciousness first set in motion by the slave ships that began to move across (and to the bottom of) the oceans. Christina Sharpe writes that the ‘residence time’ – or time spent in the ocean – for ancestors who were thrown, (or jumped) from these ships is 260 million years. Until then, we will feel the salt that belonged to their bodies as part of the oceans’ salinity, always with us as we also exist in the wake. 

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