Over a week of events celebrating the people, places and tales of the Thames Estuary…
Estuary 2025 – Vessels is the third edition of the large-scale contemporary arts festival celebrating the stories, places and people of the Thames Estuary with over 9 days of performances, installations and events across the region.
Through the theme of ‘Vessels’, Estuary 2025 looks beyond the boats and ships that move in and out of the Thames Estuary, to think about the festival itself as a vessel – exploring people’s complex and changing relationship to this unique landscape.
Taking place every four years across the South Essex and North Kent coastlines the festival explores the rich and often overlooked stories of estuary people and places, creating extraordinary arts experiences inspired by unexpected places. Originally conceived and programmed by Metal in 2016 as a catalyst to embed long-term change in the perceptions and visibility of the region, this third edition of the festival marks its first as an independent arts organisation.
Estuary 2025 will feature newly commissioned artworks across multiple sites and will take place 21-29 June 2025, coinciding with both spring and neap tides to offer opportunities to engage with the Thames Estuary on land and water.
Two festival highlights have been announced with the full programme due to be confirmed in April.
SALT is a new site-specific performance from Arbonauts set in a tidal pool in South Essex. Merging theatre, dance and installation Arbonauts will create a new work that looks at the issues of rising sea levels and the climate crisis. All performed live in the water of the tidal pool by 30 dancers to a specially created soundscape of recorded sounds from along the estuary.
Arbonauts is a multi-disciplinary company founded by Helen Galliano and Dimitri Launder with an experimental and collaborative core that creates bold, site-specific performance merging theatre, dance and installation. It will be the second expanded chapter to the first set of performances produced for Estuary 2021 titled SILT.
WHO AM I? by acclaimed muralist and artist Damilola Odusote charts his distinct upbringing growing up in the Thames Estuary and takes the form of a 4 metre-high phone-box installation that will tour to different locations during Estuary 2025.
Odusote was born to Nigerian parents and fostered by a Caucasian couple in Tilbury, Essex. His work explores the underlying issues that formed his identity as a person of colour raised in a culturally and economically deprived port town in Essex by foster parents from a Romany Gypsy heritage. This art is Odusote’s look back on his tough upbringing and his rite of passage to the career he carved out against the background of adversity.
Odusote recreates and super-sizes the iconic BT phone booth from the 1990s that served as a landmark meeting point in Tilbury. The installation serves as a physical and metaphorical symbol of connecting to the past and emanates the sense of childlike innocence and nostalgia that everything appears larger than life from a child’s view. The stark and sterile exterior of the booth is contrasted with a mural throughout the interior and immersive audio recordings emitting from the telephone receiver and around the booth.
Odusote is engaging with young people along the Estuary to share his story and connect with their story to form the audio recordings for the booth.
Tickets for this year’s festival will go on sale in April. For further information visit www.estuaryfestival.com
Estuary 2025 – VESSELS
Saturday 21 – Sunday 29 June 2025
SALT performance times:
Friday 27 June, 8-9pm
Saturday 28 June, 8-9pm
Location: in a tidal pool on the South Essex coastline.
Who Am I? Locations for touring installation:
Saturday 21 June: Canvey Island seafront, Castle Point, South Essex
Sunday 22 June: Grays High Street, Thurrock, South Essex
Monday 23 June & Tuesday 24 June: Tilbury Town, Thurrock, South Essex
Wednesday 25 June: Chatham, Medway, North Kent
Thursday 26 June: Gravesend High Street, North Kent
Friday 27 June: Canvey Island seafront, Castle Point, South Essex
Saturday 28 June: Sheerness, Swale, North Kent
Sunday 29 June: Wat Tyler Country Park, Basildon, South Essex
