Essex Neck

I am from Essex; a curious place composed of complex relationships to land, body, action, screen and politics.

The comedian Russell Kane has made his entire career out of speaking about Essex, how he felt about living with it and growing up inside of it. In one memorable set Kane speaks very warmly about the walking phenomenon of the ‘Essex Neck’, a predominantly male and startling affliction, best described as a violent movement of the neck that thrusts the body forward, first the torso then the legs, arms flailing to the side. The neck thus resets and repeats, propelling the body with surprising speed and force into and about the roads, houses, shops and pubs of Essex. This incredible description, while expertly exaggerated for comic effect, reveals a fundamental Essexness: that Essex has always forged its own path and walked a different walk.

Perhaps that is why the opening chapter of Tim Burrows’ book The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County reveals a wondrous and expertly researched plethora of writings and ‘reviews’ on the people of Essex, from as far back as 1700, that reveal opinions and comments that are not all that agreeable: ‘Poor, poorly educated, backward and clinging to superstition.’ (Burrows, 2023). This is sadly not at all dissimilar to those emanating from television and the press over the last 20 years, where the ideologies of Essex man, Essex boy and Essex girl have grown worldwide.

But then to be different is to be an invitation for looks and comments.

Consider the location of Essex: east of London, predominantly flat and governed by and created from the Thames estuary and its brackish waterways. Essex comprises swathes of richly biodiverse marshland, beautiful, wondrous expanses and ex-industrial spaces now reclaimed by nature; however, it is often still viewed by outsiders as a wasteland, only fit for rubbish dumps, car breakers and military testing.

My question then is: how can this attack on Essex be made sense of, and who are the agitators? Are the Essexians to blame? According to Kane, perhaps, with their odd expressive ways. Is it perhaps the land—its flat, muddy, water-filled earth—dominating how its people are perceived? Or are the outsiders to blame, who look down upon, ridicule and demonise all that they do not understand?

Each artist in this show reveals an Essexness within their work; that is to say, they repel and reveal uncomfortable alternatives by focusing on the unknown, hidden, imagined, grotesque, overt and renewed spaces. Forging forward through myths, superstition, strange acts and otherness.

Artists: Collectif_fact (Annelore Schneider and Claude Piguet); Demi Spriggs; Keh Ng; Liane Lang; Matthew Stock; Richard Ducker and Ian Thompson; Sarah Sparkes; Tina Hage.

A publication accompanying this exhibition features the voices of the artists and is available for free.