Researching the histories of various regions in Wales, Angela Davies develops her work exploring realities that exist both within and outside of our time and space. This latest work is derived from the small coves – namely, the Porth Ysgaden (herring harbour) and the Porth y Cychod (boat harbour) on the north coast of Penllyn in Gwynedd – once the lifeblood of local communities sustained by the herring fishing industry, but now apparently, undeveloped and almost forgotten. Remnants of the past are still traceable along the coastline – a little fishing cottage, netting and ropes, fragments of boat, and some ghost stories. 

The performance was executed on a particular day, the Autumnal Equinox in 2025, 22 September, when day and night are approximately equal in length, marking the transition from summer to autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. The colour tone in the film from this equinoctial moment visualises a spectacular harmony that transcends the mundane, whilst the silhouette of the structure at the Porth y Cychod and the performer in the mist suggest a distance, both spacial and temporal. Here comes the performer, dressed in a skin-tight, futuristic outfit. Who is she, and where does she come from? – from those historical sites, from the depths of the sea, or from an unearthly realm?

Traditionally, salt played an important role in the fishing heritage – a essential mineral used to preserve fish until the industry declined in the 1950s. Symbolically, it holds the power to stabilise, heal, and transform. In performer’s hands rests a white bowl crafted from salt. It is empty, a bowl of salt – either to seek blessings, or to make an offering, returning back to the ocean, its home, its origin, ready for the next birth. A large circle is carved into the sand beach and decorated with the salt, while the performer casts her long shadow from its centre – seemingly, the point of a compass symbolising our position, or the hand of a clock, our time. The salt bowl, the sand circle, and the moon – all round in form – become images of unity and the cycle of renewal.

Just before dusk, the performance on Ty’n Tywyn beach interprets the breath of the ocean, tidal rhythms, and the fluidity of nature. Performing in the natural landscape, the dancer endeavours to stand on the sand, in the water, and move through cracks of rocks, retaining the sense of poise, and at the same time, evoking the tension between daily life and the environment. What she strives to express, in fact, is not just the loss of the fishing heritage, the past, but something more critical, and relevant to our contemporary world – the loss of balance and harmony. It is not to merely reimagine an abandoned site; instead, it responds to the global urgency of our environmental crisis. In this way, every movement of the performance becomes an embodiment of human effort to re-connect our land and sea, and to reconcile with nature for future generations, until she raises a sail, envisioning a new departure.