Yanglan Wang
Selected Work 2022-2025
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wangyanglan0612@163.coms2514439@ed.ac.uk
A Blue Blender
ALNESS, SCOTLAND 2024-2025
In the Moray Firth, people are constantly taking resources from the sea, while the sea level is rising due to climate change and occupying land space. This spatial conflict forces humans to further intervene in the sea, and the sea then has brought more impacts to humans. The Blue Humanities points out that human concern for the sea is more focused on extracting wealth from it, rather than caring about the sea itself. However, humans emerged from the sea. Therefore, it is necessary to mitigate this conflict and rebuild the relationship between humans and the sea.
In Alness, due to the future trend of rising sea levels, the coastal margin that people have been developing will be submerged by sea water. Dalmore distillery, which is very important to the Alness economy, faces the future of being submerged by sea water as well. Therefore, while resolving the conflict between people and the sea in Dalmore, Alness, the future relocation of the distillery needs further consideration.
As humans should shift the relationship to non-humans from fixing to caring. Is there a possibility that the sea, as a subject with its own interests equal to humans, can be free from human restrictions and planning, and let it freely explore its boundaries in the future of climate change? And the ability of the sea to blend everything will dynamically affect the coastal margin. Therefore, without stopping the sea level rising, A BLUE BLENDER will use Alness as an experimental community blended by sea water, change the production mode and location of Dalmore Distillery, and explore how to transform the relationship between humans and the sea from conflict to interdependence under the senario of climate change.
As humans continue to explore areas beyond land, we begin to use space in the sea. At the same time, we are also facing many environmental problems, such as rising sea levels. Human has been already focusing on these tasks. However, it seems the most of our understanding of the ocean is limited to the parts that directly affect humans.
The hidden relationship between humans and the ocean need to be further discussed. Inspired by the photo of layered landscape in the field trip, transferring the landscapes as readable files by abstracting the textures and materials collected fron the field trip is a way to analysis the coastal margins.
The salt printing was introduced into the project to develop self-portraits of the sea. And they are combined with textures of other landscape elements abstracted through gel printing to make a series of drawings of the coastal margins. These margins drawings are giving a strong feeling of how much space of the sea has been occupied by human. However, on the contrary, as the sea level rising and the coastal erosion, finally we are going to 'return' the space to the sea. The relationship between humans and the sea in the coastal margins of the Moray Firth is conflicting.
Loch Fleet
Many important habitats are found here. The saltmarshes, intertidal mud and sand flats and so on, are incredibly important for a range of wildlife.
Littleferry
Although the commercial woodlands still exist, the changing margin is home to a variety of birds, insects and animals.
Nairn
Wind and waves stimulate the sea to expand. The tree were planted to reinforced the eroding coast.
Nigg
Livestock, woodlands, cliffs and the sea. People have already deeply explored the landuse.
Dornoch
The transition between the city and the sea seems natural here. People not only appreciate the magnificent beauty of the sea, but also leave room for the freedom of the sea.
Golspie
Here, the city and the sea are separated by seawalls and enbankments. Life here seems peaceful, but people all know, the flooding is coming.
Cromarty
The appearance of seawalls and bays along the coast expresses a contradictory emotion. Human beings are afraid of the threat brought by the sea, but they are also full of the desire for exploring the sea.
Invergordon
Humans are further occupying the space and resources of the ocean. Here, the coast margins are almost entirely dominated by industry.
In Moray Firth, the Cromarty Firth is an area where conflicts between human and the sea are most evident. In addition to traditional fishing, ori rigs are hauled here, and industrial areas along the coast are developing. At the same time, parts of the coastal land will be flooded by future sea level rise.
In Cromarty Firth, the landscape framework of Alness is holded by the interaction of different types of water. Meanwhile, people here have been developing and using land in coastal areas for centuries, and the trend of sea level rise is also very obvious here. Therefore, Alness is selected as a test field to test new adaptions of human-sea relations under the scenario climate change.
In the coastal area of Alness, Dalmore has seawater, freshwater, and potential flood risk, and will be affected by sea level rise in the future.
The ingredients of the blending process are not only the obvious landscape elements, but also many materials involved in different processes that take place at Dalmore. So the ingredients involved in two major processes (distillation and sea level rise, and the blending relationship and potential between them) are taken into consideration.
In the whisky production process of Dalmore Distillery, barley is the main raw material. Byproducts of the production process, such as draff and lees, can be used as feed for Dalmore Farm. As sea level rises, the land used by Dalmore Distillery will be affected, and the output will gradually decrease. At the same time, rising sea level will cause new coastal processes, which will cause coastal habitats to move continuously inland, and eventually the location of these habitats will overlap with the distillery.
The relocation and resumption of production at the distillery will be divided into three stages. Before 2050, whisky distillation will be suspended and the facilities will be moved to the new distillery in Dalmore Farm. At this time, the distillery will only have a small amount of new make spirits left waiting to mature. In order to increase the output of the distillery to reduce the impact of the relocation, gin, which takes less time, will gradually become the main product. In 2150, whisky will return to being the main product of Dalmore Distillery. Production of juniper berries and gin will remain stable. At this time, Dalmore Distillery will become the space that sea blends the coastal margin.
In 2150, whisky production is fully restored. The byproducts of meshing and distillation, such as draff and pot ale, are now a stable feed and energy supply. The position of the mean high water is relatively stable due to the terrain. At this time, the seawater, as a key element that blends the entire coastal margin, both carries out coastal processes and becomes a catalyst for the revitalization of Dalmore Distillery. The rise of seawater allows halothypes to become a stable source of gin flavor, and also makes the coastal margin of Dalmore a resilient assemblage with a stable ecosystem. This margin mediates the spatial conflict between the sea and humans, transforming it into a assemblage of interdependence between humans and the sea.
The Detailed Design of Walkway
Section A-A'
As sea levels rise, people standing above the old Dalmore Distillery will have the ocean beneath their feet, and the Oil Rig in the distance will create a sharp contrast.
As sea levels rise, people standing above the old Dalmore Distillery will have the ocean beneath their feet, and the Oil Rig in the distance will create a sharp contrast.
The Present Coastal Path
As coastline retreats, coastal processes will cause the deposition coast to accumulate sediments to let habitats to continue to move inland.
The Coastal Path in 2150
The original A9 road that runs through the coastal grassland will be removed, allowing more space for habitats such as saltmarshes and grasslands to move forward.
The original A9 road that runs through the coastal grassland will be removed, allowing more space for habitats such as saltmarshes and grasslands to move forward.
After the distillery is relocated, most of the above-ground buildings will be demolished. The remaining concrete foundation will be reused as the foundation of the walkway. The land below the walkway will gradually change to the tidal flat that is constantly washed by the sea. Here, as the sea level rises, the sea water continues to blend the coastal margin. Humans, the sea, and other creatures will all witness the formation of this assemblage that should have existed.
The Detailed Design of Halophytes Planting Pond
The Halophytes Planting Pond
The ground part of some buildings on the west side of the distillery will be demolished, and the remaining concrete foundation will be transformed into a planting pond for growing halophytes. These halophytes will be used as the flavor source of the sea flavored gin produced by Dalmore Distillery.
Returning to the scale of the coastal margin, in the future, the coastal margin of Alness will become an assemblage blended by the sea...