Flood Cycle

'26.6.2008. 9.00 hours. Cloud level has risen sufficiently to see the heights of the island of Hoy. The margin of existence that I had noticed in North Ronaldsay, with its apparent make do approach to the problem of sea encroachment, is displayed along much of the island's coastline. As I walk along the shores of the Hoy sound I come to a patchwork of sandbags that have been placed within the fragmenting sandstone of the upper shore. Close by these sea defences an old stone wall encloses a cemetery. Many of the headstones are inscribed with readings of latitude and longitude, indicating that the buried were probably mariners. High and dry upon the shores of the sound, the seamen rest: the sea had taken them and in the fullness of time it will claim them back.' As climate change and the prospect of relentlessly rising sea levels threaten communities around the world, artist and writer John Kelly records this process in words and images. From the high altiplano of Bolivia, through Newfoundland, the Arctic regions of Alaska and Svalbard, to the Baltic and Orkney, he evokes the dramatic natural transformations affecting our planet and their impact on people and landscapes.