Salt! at 8pm.

Newlyn Orion Gallery: Join Andrew Fielding in the gallery garden as he extracts salt from sea water, using the ancient method of heating saltwater in ceramic troughs over a peat fire. Andrew’s aim will be to see how much salt he can produce in the 12-hour period. We will also work throughout the night with Amanda Lorens to create an animation of tales in a salt landscape. To sustain our audience and participants there will be a variety of fruits from the sea, from the edible to the aural available, including a series of salty tales, told throughout the night. 

This video was shot at 8pm as Andrew lit the peat fires under the troughs. With a heady mix of sea water taken from Mount's Bay only a few feet away and peat from Peterhead in Scotland the atmosphere in the grounds of the Newlyn Orion Gallery began to take on an alchemy of their own.

 Early stages as the peat fires are lit......

first of the biscuit fired clay salting troughs are filled with sea water.......

 Newlyn is just one of many venues taking part in the Salt project.......

 topping up the steel salt tank........

 there's some well researched books on the history of salt and salt works........

 all these events are part of ECOSAL Atlantis.......

salt samples and plenty of reading matter for the visitor. Salt and the fishing industry are inextricably linked the world over - salted fish in one form or another has featured in the diet of many cultures pre-dating the use of refrigeration to preserve fish allowing for increased storage and transportation. The last salt fishing factory in the Uk only closed its doors a few years ago - see the Pilchard Works web site for more information. There's a site dedicated to salt in all forms here.