Mary H. Gagen, who is an Associate Professor of Geography at Swansea University wrote an essay called Navigating Coastal Climate Change for the Ephemeral Coast, S. Wales catalogue.
Here is a short extract which describes the relationship between her life and research on the Welsh coast:
“I was born and raised in Manchester, a large post-industrial town in the north of England. At the age of 17 my family moved to Mumbles, a nineteenth century Welsh fishing village, close to Swansea. The sound of the sea kept me awake at night, and I yearned for the sound of planes landing at Manchester’s International Airport. Two decades later, I cannot imagine living away from the coast. My coastal years formed my decision to train as a physical geographer, and finally as a climate scientist. The beach near to my new home was – unbeknownst to me at the time – one of the most famous sites in the UK to anyone studying the sea level changes that accompanied the last great ice age.”
She is a member of C3W, the Climate Change Consortium of Wales and in response to the first exhibition, Dr. Gagen brought groups of students to participate in climate change awareness activities in the gallery.
Image and text courtesy of the author, Ephemeral Coast and punctum books.
