The Sun Rises and Sets in Revere Beach
with Ilana Curtis & Coco Tin
Fall–2021
︎ Exhibition
︎ Writing
︎ Landscape
︎ Ethnography
Revere Beach itself is a process: eventual and unrelenting, it’s the manifestation of competing narratives and stories interlocked together. It’s constructed but natural; seagulls crack open unlucky clams next to reclining people in lawn chairs breathing the briny, salty air. Things grow in Revere Beach: sea moss, kelp, crustaceans, birds, dogs, even people, coexist in direct view, but deeper visions of the landscape become apparent too. It’s where competing architectures occur, setting fast-fabricated condos alongside sharp-edged public housing. Shuttered ice cream shops live within the sand; just as the tide slowly retracts all of what grows back within unknown grey waters, Revere Beach, of its own, exists as a space of minute change, but constant nonetheless. The beach pulls and pushes, bringing dog-walkers and broken seashells to the same sandy banks. Populated but sparse, Revere questions how the coastal landscape can be read. The ocean is the end of the “land”-scape, or is it? A space in flux, with progressive narratives visible and unnoticed by us, “The Sun Rises & Sets in Revere” emerges.
“What was it that the metropolitan district sought to secure when it purchased this costly sea-coast reservation? It was the grand and refreshing sight of the natural sea beach, with its long, simple curve, and its open view of the ocean. Nothing in the world presents a more striking contrast to the jumbled, noisy scenery of a great town; and this being the case, it seems to us that to place buildings on the beach is consciously to sacrifice the most refreshing characteristic of a sea-beach, and the most valuable element to the people is property therein.”
--- Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect
“What was it that the metropolitan district sought to secure when it purchased this costly sea-coast reservation? It was the grand and refreshing sight of the natural sea beach, with its long, simple curve, and its open view of the ocean. Nothing in the world presents a more striking contrast to the jumbled, noisy scenery of a great town; and this being the case, it seems to us that to place buildings on the beach is consciously to sacrifice the most refreshing characteristic of a sea-beach, and the most valuable element to the people is property therein.”
--- Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect
