Gabrielle Hoad

Two figures on a beach stretch a length of parachute silk between them, partly obscuring both their own bodies and the distant horizon

Clouded Border  |  2021-2022

Clouded Border was an extended collaboration with Megan Calver, developed with and for Durlston Country Park & National Nature Reserve in Dorset. This site-responsive project drew inspiration from Durlston's history as a lookout and signalling station. Named after a variety of night-flying moth found on site, the project also referenced an innovative radio-based navigation system developed in part and deployed at Durlston during World War II. Known as Oboe, it allowed RAF bombers to precisely locate targets in Nazi-occupied Europe - at night or in heavy cloud or smog.

Work began remotely during the 2021 lockdown with experimental works drawing on the Rangers' Daily Diary. Two periods of residency at Durlston itself (June 2021 and March 2022) enabled in-depth on-site research, while a micro-residency at Exeter Phoenix (August 2021) allowed for the development of ideas in a gallery context. A site-specific installation in the Belvedere of Durlston Castle followed in September 2022. The project has now evolved into a more detailed exploration of the work of Oboe's inventor Alec Harley Reeves called Delicate Instruments.