Silas Birtwistle
A Table from the Sea's Edge
A Table From The Sea's Edge is an art project, devised by Silas Birtwistle to raise awareness of environmental issues and to promote conservation of the world's coastal and marine biodiversity. It was the artist's contribution to the UN International Year of Biological Diversity in 2010.
Silas Birtwistle says: “It was my aim to embody the rich biodiversity of nature by crafting a large conference table surrounded by twelve chairs, made entirely from beautiful examples of driftwood - collected from four key hots-pots around the world. It is a dramatic statement on the environment, uniting different cultures and coastal communities, connecting land with sea, and symbolizing the boundary between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, making connections between man's land-based activities and the marine and coastal environment.”
Unveiled in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010 during the Convention on Biological Diversity, it provided the platform for a multitude of high-level UN debates on environmental issues and ceremonial signings of agreements. It has since been used at The World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in 2011, and exhibited at The SouthBank Centre, Liverpool's The World Museum and most recently at The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. As a result, the twelve individually-designed chairs can claim to have been sat on by some of the best-known politicians, environmentalists and celebrities from the film and music business. Visit the project website here.
