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Bob Lockwood
Creative Media and Performance

Project: Torbay Rewilding

A 2020 video project that imagines the rewilding of the deserted spaces of Torbay with African animals

Project Date: 2020

A 2020 video project that imagines the rewilding of the deserted spaces of Torbay with African animals

See all the full showcase on Vimeo

How it all happened….

The seed for this collaboration was sown one early March morning, at the beginning of lockdown. I was walking with Otis (the dog) along the seafront in Torquay.

Normally at this time of year, and especially with the glorious spring weather we were having, the place would be teeming with people – locals and visitors. But it was virtually empty of human presence.

I imagined how it would be if this were to continue, and how nature would quickly start to reclaim Torbay. The first image that came to mind was of a humpback whale leaping out of the sea in middle of the bay.

So I went back to my studio and painted the image that was in my head, and posted it on social media. Hugh Nankivell saw the post and promptly wrote a song. So a fruitful and creative cross-disciplinary collaboration began, we both had the time and space to allow our imaginations to ‘run wild’.

A much valued friendship has also developed, and lockdown loneliness was considerably eased for me. A positive memory of the early ‘Pandemic Period’ is the legacy of this.

The much-maligned pangolin appears in this series because it was not to blame for the current pandemic, as some have claimed. Or a bat in China. It was far more likely to have been caused by the human exploitation of our natural world. That needs to change quickly if we are all to survive into the future.

Rick Thorpe

September 2020