Star of the Sea was a monumental sculptural space constructed on the beach at Zeebrugge. Formed from reclaimed concrete drainage pipes and triangular inspection chambers, its interconnected structure created a circuit of tunnels around a central pool. Chimney-like openings rose from its surface, giving the work the appearance of an excavated ruin, industrial infrastructure or an unfamiliar vessel stranded at the edge of the North Sea.

The work was conceived as a portrait of Zeebrugge itself: a shifting assembly of different presences, marked by people coming and going and by the friction between industrial and natural systems. An international port, fishing community, seaside resort, residential neighbourhood and expansive beach all occupy the same landscape, divided and connected by roads, railways, waterways, dunes and the sea.

Its form echoed structures encountered along the Belgian coast: bunkers, forts, pavilions, sandcastles and playgrounds. It resisted being understood as any one of these things. Its hexagonal arrangement did not immediately disclose the star suggested by its title. It could be encountered as a potential ruin, an alien object, a collapsed sandcastle or a piece of urban infrastructure carried out to sea.

The title also referred to the nearby Stella Maris Chapel. Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea, is an ancient name for Mary as protector of sailors and travellers, associated with refuge, guidance and safe passage. This connection introduced another understanding of the work: not simply as an object on the beach, but as a form of temple.

In his original proposal, Morison described this as a “temple of weirdness”, a sculptural space for subtle connection, queer ways of being and intimacy with landscape, matter, light, time and other bodies. Intimacy was understood as an exercise of attention. The work was intended to be “monumental, but gentle”, creating a space in which visitors might become more conscious of their material and social surroundings.

The concrete components had been reclaimed from a manufacturer close to the site. Normally concealed beneath roads, these forms belong to the hidden infrastructure of cities, carrying wastewater and providing access for inspection and repair. Here, they were drilled, altered, re-cast and joined together to create a cloister-like passage and an inner gathering space.

Marks and textures from their industrial production remained visible across the walls. Further details suggested earlier or imagined occupations: a small bench, carved symbols, traces of passing and openings through which the concrete appeared to grow towards the light. These elements unsettled any clear distinction between a newly built structure and an already inhabited ruin.

Visitors entered through circular openings and found themselves within a network of enclosed passages. The scale at times required the body to bend, crouch or crawl. Inside, light and shadow shifted across the curved concrete surfaces. Sounds, smells and changes in temperature intensified as visitors moved between enclosed chambers, open sky and the surrounding beach.

The structure offered no prescribed way of being used. People could sit, lie down, shelter, gather, play or encounter one another. Children climbed and ran across its exterior. Others sought out the secluded spaces inside. It was imagined as a place for beachgoers, retired morning walkers, port workers, truck drivers, sailors, tourists, dogs, birds and those arriving after dark in search of kinship with the sea, the stars or one another.

The proposal argued against both “the imposition of an unchanging permanence” and the disturbance and wastefulness of the merely temporary. In their place, it advocated for an openness to the temporal. The work would be allowed to grow and dissolve, becoming part of the evolving, self-building system of the beach.

Although concrete ordinarily signifies permanence, Star of the Sea was subjected to continuous change. Wind carried sand into and around it. Tides entered the tunnels and left pools within its chambers. Sections were slowly buried and later exposed. Birds perched on it, people marked and inhabited it, and the surfaces accumulated the evidence of weather, water and occupation.

For the opening, fires were lit within the cauldron-like chimneys. Smoke rose from the structure, soot gathered across the ceilings and its smell permeated the concrete. This marked the final moment in which the artist directly acted upon the work before handing it over to others.

“Today is the last moment we get to make our conscious mark upon it before it is inhabited by others. The soot and the smell are another marker of past occupations.”

Ivan Morison, notes for the opening of Star of the Sea, 2024

The work was conceived as a response to the inevitability of change, something Morison described as simultaneously powerful, frightening and unavoidable. It did not propose escape or transcendence. Instead, it drew the visitor downwards and inwards, towards the material world and the unstable conditions of the present.

Writing in Apollo, Isabella Smith described Star of the Sea as “a warren of Nancy Holt-like concrete tunnels piled on the beach of Zeebrugge”. Identifying it as a highlight of the Bruges and Beaufort triennials, she imagined the structure becoming a place claimed by local teenagers, somewhere for private and unsanctioned encounters beyond the prescribed functions of public space. She concluded that Star of the Sea was “a hard act to follow”.

Isabella Smith, Apollo, 9 July 2024

       


‘Star of the Sea continues the artist’s long-standing interest in exploring how art in public space may respond to situations, integrating porosity and uncertainty as elements of the art-making process. In this line of work, Star of the Seamay be viewed as a temple, a portal not to the future, but to ‘the unpredictable present’, opening possibilities for subtle and spontaneous connections. Either individually or in groups, the transient and less transient users of Zeebrugge are invited to use the space: to contemplate, explore, lie down or sit, gather, play, and interact with one another and with their surroundings.’

‘At the same time, this concrete temple is erected using materials that echo the industrial activities in the area, but also bring hidden city infrastructures onto the beach. The reclaimed modular pieces from which it is built are normally used in sewage systems that carry wastewater. Set beside a part of the beach where nature seems to be reclaiming its presence and forming a dune, the work is in constant interaction with the elements: wind, sand and the cycle of tides. Registering the changing conditions on the beach, the work transforms across the six months that it resides in Zeebrugge, as sand amasses around it, burying some parts, and water enters and exits it. In some way, it acts as a kind of ‘barometer’ that measures change, or even the pressures coastlines face in the light of climate emergency and rising sea levels.’

Sevie Tsampalla, curator, Triënnale Brugge 2024

Photographers’ credits       


_Filip Dujardin/Femke den Hollander/Jan Darthet/Studio Que Paso/jAu Fotografie/Ivan Morison_