W.G Sebald
In 2007 I was invited by Film and Video Umbrella London, to
make new work for the exhibition Waterlog
with the artists Marcus Coates, Tacita Dean, Alec Finlay, Alexander and
Susan Maris, and Simon Pope. The exhibition was curated by Jeremy Millar and Steven Bode, and
staged at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA Norwich; Norwich Castle
Museum and Art Gallery and The Collection Lincoln; with a conference and book
launch at Tate Britain London. A guiding presence throughout the exhibition and
the book was the writing of the late W. G Sebald, and in particular his
novel/memoir/travelogue The Rings of Saturn
(1998). The exhibition publication Waterlog – Journeys Around an Exhibition includes essays
and poetry by Tacita Dean, Brian Dillon, Matthew Hollis, Robert Macfarlane,
Jeremy Millar and George Szirtes.Moreton's large-scale images concentrate on the ruins of Dunston Pillar, Britain's only land lighthouse, which was built in 1751 to guide travellers towards Lincoln. As an isolated and out-of-place monument with a resonant history, Dunston Pillar might have dropped straight out of Sebald; and Moreton's photographs are the exhibition's closest transpositions of Sebald's writings into another medium. Here, the exhibition seems to be about circling Sebald's work - just as Moreton's photographs circle the Pillar, and Saturn's rings encircle the planet.
Jonathan Taylor, Waterlog, The Times Literary Supplement, 12.10.2007