Sandy Makes Waves In The British Art World

If for some reason you are traveling to England later this month, you might want to travel to Deal, in Kent, and check out a cool exhibit that features stunning photography of the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island.

Dubbed Leave Home Stay – Gone, the exhibit is a collaboration between 53-year-old Christine Finn and 85-year-old Harry Chapman, both Deal natives. Finn, inspired by Chapman’s low-fi photographs of transient life in Paris during the 1950s, found herself in Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island right after Superstorm Sandy crashed through the region.

She captured some stunning photographs like the sand strewn boardwalk at Coney Island featured above, of post-storm relief kitchens in the Rockaways and of salvaged personal effects from flooded out Sheepshead Bay homes.

The project is a followup of sorts to Finn’s Leave Home Stay exhibit from 2007, in which she turned her childhood home in Deal into an art exhibit. That project explored the concept of home and her emotional torment as she faced a decision to move from home or stay, following her parents’ death. The Sandy-related exhibit handles similar themes of loss, and the definition of “home.”

The exhibit is sponsored by Arts Council England, starts on February 21 at 58 Golf Road, Deal, Kent. If you find yourself across the pond, and happen upon the exhibit, let us know what you think!