Mary O’Neill and Paul Stewart, 2026
9 minutes · Single-channel video
By the Sea follows the North East coastline from Redcar to Berwick, considering the sea not as a boundary or backdrop, but as a space that is continually put to use.
Moving between beaches, harbours, industry, fishing, tourism, transport and everyday coastal life, the film observes the different functions that accumulate along the edge of the North Sea. It considers a coastline shaped by work and leisure, extraction and movement, infrastructure and ecology, where the same stretch of water can be a workplace, a route, a resource, a habitat and somewhere to escape to.
Filmed using a DJI Osmo in 4K and a Sony Handycam, the work moves between different visual registers of the coast: the observational detail of the present and an image quality associated with personal recording and home video. Rather than offering a single account of coastal identity, By the Sea pays attention to the practical relationships that connect people to the water.
Credits
A film by Mary O’Neill and Paul Stewart
Sound by Sholto Dobie
Filmed along the North East coast, from Redcar to Berwick
