An Awful Energy

At 4:30pm today – Ramsgate-based sound artist Tom White excavates sounds and memories from a former site of tragedy, now reclaimed by nature.

The Oare Marshes Nature Reserve in Kent was once used to manufacture gunpowder for the first world war effort. On 02 April 1916 a series of massive gunpowder explosions took the lives of 108 people (including White’s Great Grandfather, Sydney Clubb) and injured many more. The blast left a crater 40 yards wide and 20 feet deep. The explosion was so huge it was reportedly felt in Norwich and heard in France.

Remnants of the site remain to this day among the rich ecosystem of birds, insects and non-native marsh frogs. An Awful Energy attempts to draw connections with the past and its present inhabitants/uses of the space; the tragic consequence of a singular event and the development of a very different ecology. Through site specific recordings and actions tracing fading lines in the landscape; a sonic demarcation or archaeology can be felt.