Conclusion

The cultural histories of the coastal margins that shape Seatangled point to new, and sometimes revived, understandings of what it means to live by the sea, even as the chemistry of the oceans changes before us. It may be then that a turn towards the coast is a turn also towards a more sustainable, and a smaller-scale, sense of community, capable at the same time of holding the planet in view. If the sea has recently been more remote from the immediate experience of everyday life than it was a century ago, the representation of its tidal margins remains a rich resource for images of self, sovereignty and the blurred boundaries between reality and the imagination, one example of which the conclusion studies is Sean Scully’s exhibition Sea Star, at the National Gallery in London.