Beach of Dreams: A nationwide creative journey along the UK’s fragile, beautiful coastlines
This month marked the start of Beach of Dreams, a festival with scale, heart, and purpose. Running until 1 June 2025, the month-long creative programme is transforming the UK’s coastlines into a dynamic stage for climate action and cultural storytelling, all through the lens of art.
Led by participatory arts organisation Kinetika, with support from Arts Council England and Historic England, Beach of Dreams has unfolded across the shores of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, activating over 90 events, eight major artist commissions, and a national touring artwork to reimagine our collective relationship with the coast.
It’s ambitious in scope but rooted in local stories. It celebrates heritage, calls for resilience, and provides a platform for communities to be seen, heard, and felt.
A coastline in flux
As sea levels rise and storm surges increase, the UK’s 19,000 miles of coastline are facing unprecedented environmental pressures. But Beach of Dreams isn’t just about drawing attention to what’s at risk. It’s about uncovering what we love, what we fear, and what we might create together in response.
“Through Beach of Dreams, we are journeying from the Beach of Broken Dreams in Thurrock to shine a spotlight on the coastal gems, organisations, people, and projects across the UK that are creating positive change and inspiring hope,” says Ali Pretty, artistic director of Beach of Dreams and founder of Kinetika. “In these uncertain times, Beach of Dreams emphasises the power of local communities to shape their own futures.”
The silks that started it all
At the heart of the programme is The Beach of Dreams Silks, a national artwork made up of 838 naturally dyed silk pennants, each one carrying a personal story and Climate Commitment from participants around the country. Installed at key moments throughout the month, the silks will ripple across beaches from Fife to Felixstowe, forming a vast, mobile artwork infused with care, memory, and intention.
Each pennant represents an individual’s connection to the coast, often made in community workshops using foraged materials and natural dyes. As the silks tour, they become a kind of collective archive – one that is strikingly beautiful but also quietly urgent in its call for stewardship and solidarity.
Eight commissions, infinite perspectives
The silks may be the symbolic thread, but the festival’s soul lies in its artist commissions, each developed in collaboration with communities and exploring a different question about our relationship to the sea.
In Tilbury, the festival launched on 3 May with Threads for Tomorrow, a poignant commission by designer Rahemur Rahman. Working with local sewing groups, Rahman has transformed damaged silk pennants – torn during a 2023 storm – into richly embroidered panels using waste materials and naturally dyed threads. These panels will embellish carnival structures inspired by Bangladeshi sampans, merging cultural identity with ecological reinvention in a live performance led by choreographer Charlene Low.
Further north, sound artist Jason Singh brings Cyd-Wrando (Listen Together) to Colwyn Bay, Wales. Here, community participants are invited to hear the subtle signals of the environment – from honeycomb worms to ancient yews – via a site-specific soundscape accessed through AR markers along the coastline. It’s immersive, interactive, and deeply tuned into the dialogue between land and sea.
In South Tyneside, The Power of Nature sees photographer Tessa Bunney and writer Stevie Ronnie exploring how underwater habitats like kelp forests and oyster reefs can stabilise our coasts and boost biodiversity. Developed with local groups through Stronger Shores, a DEFRA-funded resilience programme, the project includes an outdoor photography exhibition and original poetry created by the community.
Over in Northern Ireland, Our Siren Song by Beat Carnival channels myth and music. From 13–17 May, a week of coastal walks, storytelling, carnival arts and music workshops will culminate in a spectacular procession through Millisle, featuring a four-metre-tall operatic siren, community choirs, and musicians singing out across the sea.
Meanwhile, in Fife, artist Julie Brook crafts Tide Line – a 100-metre sculptural intervention made from local stones and built at low tide. Accompanied by walking journeys, creative workshops, and new choral work, the project draws attention to erosion, plastic pollution, and rising seas – making visible the invisible forces shaping our shorelines.
Other commissions include Collecting Dreams, Shifting Futures in East Anglia, a story-gathering project supported by Historic England and taking place in Great Yarmouth, Harwich and Orford Ness, and The Beach of Dreams Village, a striking, sustainable installation in Great Yarmouth designed with Bamboology’s Joseph Williams. Both offer joyful, participatory spaces for reflection, learning and celebration.
A digital storytelling platform and an invitation to act
While the physical artworks form the festival’s public face, Beach of Dreams is just as alive online. A digital Stories platform serves as an evolving archive of community voices, creative processes, and climate reflections, offering behind-the-scenes access and amplifying regional perspectives.
Importantly, anyone can participate, whether by joining a walk, submitting a workshop idea, or sharing a Climate Commitment on the Beach of Dreams website. These tangible pledges, like planting seagrass or reducing plastic use, add up to a national network of local action.
Legacy and reflection
Although the festival runs until 1 June, its legacy continues later in the year. In September, Beach of Dreams will culminate in a final performance – Sonnet of Samsara – in partnership with Activate Performing Arts as part of Inside Out Dorset. The piece will weave together movement, silk installations, and storytelling along Weymouth Beach, offering a moment of collective reflection.
It will also mark the start of a new residency, bringing together artists, thinkers, and local voices to explore how the festival’s’s creative energy can seed longer-term change.
With its mix of spectacle and sensitivity, Beach of Dreams is more than a festival. It’s’s a model for how art can hold space for complexity – beauty and vulnerability, tradition and change, grief and imagination – all while inviting us to walk, listen, make, and care a little more deeply for the places we so often take for granted.
🔗 Source: Original Source
📅 Published on: 2025-05-15 09:17:00
🖋️ Author: Abbey Bamford – An expert in architectural innovation and design trends.
For more inspiring articles and insights, explore our Art Article Archive.
Note: This article was reviewed and edited by the archot editorial team to ensure accuracy and quality.
