By Keeley Hussain
A new solo exhibition in Leicestershire explores climate grief and humanity’s relationship with water through performance, film, and sculpture.
Futile Acts, by artist Issie Martin, is being presented in Loughborough and examines the limit of human control in the face of the climate crisis.
The exhibition uses moving images, drawing and print to document site-specific performances in response to the rising sea levels and eroding coastlines.
The work was created using materials gathered along the East Kent shoreline, including chalk, seaweed and salt.
Martin constructed sculptural tools and performed actions that test the boundary between body and landscape, such as attempting to contain water in dissolvable vessels and coastlines by hand.
The exhibition references myth and repetition, drawing on stories such as King Canute’s command of the tides and Sisyphus, to highlight the futility of resisting natural forces.
Through these gestures, Futile Acts reflects on ecological uncertainty, bodily fragility, and the emotional impact of climate change.
Martin’s practice focuses on bodies of water and changing coastlines, particularly along the East Kent coast.
She works across film, drawing, etching, and sculpture and is currently studying MA Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
