An armada of driftwood vessels greets anyone small or limber enough to crouch through this enticing exhibition at Birkenhead’s Williamson Art Gallery.
The exhibition is the brainchild of Frances Carlile and is formed of dozens of series of miniature, fragile boats. Each series tells a different story from history, myth and legend, but here, together, they have a raging, subtle power that I doubt anyone really anticipated.
The artist, whose work typically focuses on environmentalism through highlighting found and repurposed materials, has embodied the language of salvaged vessels, so that even without the stories that intentionally come with the exhibition, you can easily form your own emotional response to loss, to war, to migration, transport, and transit.
Though not exclusively natural, and not exclusively of the sea, the materials are collated for a purpose. The language around them supports that purpose: foraging, clearance.
Clearance, for example. The title of a single work, shelf-mounted and elevated above the rest of the fleet, tells a story of forced migration.
The huts, three of them, standing on a simple raft, in the form of a foraged piece of timber cladding, house real histories, presented through materials that all, in some way, refer to shelter.
Some take their title from the Shipping Forecast. Others from constellations. And in each name, there is a story that helps you to process exactly why Frances Carlile has chosen the materials she has.
To create this vast collection of work, the artist explored beaches between the country’s extremes; the Mersey, the Dee Estuary, Anglesey and the Welsh Coast, Cornwall, Dorset, Scotland’s West Coast and East Neuk, the Small Isles and the Outer Hebrides.
Materials from these sites have been carefully catalogued, and even those natural barks are often from invasive and migratory species: eucalyptus, cedar, and lavender.
At every point, this exhibition is meticulous in being true to its concept. It is all telling a story of migration, travel, and global connections. It’s all linked by the sea, and by passage. It’s an expert representation of why it is so essentially important for artists of this kind to establish an understanding and a set of beliefs around their practice, so that they can properly tell new stories when they need to.
I found joy in the detail here, but it’s worth visiting for the spectacle regardless.
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Frances Carlile: Passage is open at Williamson Art Gallery & Museum until 4th July 2026
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
