A K M O N

Putting on a DIY group show with three good friends.

Inception

About 4 years ago now, I made the two film photographs below on a roll of Rollei Retro 80S, of these curious concrete blocks protecting Folkestone Harbour. They are located just outside the harbour entrance on the sandy beach (Sunny Sands) and you can only stand down in front of them during an exceptionally low tide.

The strong shadows they create on a bright sunny day really lend themselves to B&W images and I was always in awe of them. At the time I didn’t know much about them, I didn’t know what they were called, and I certainly didn’t know then that myself and a few good friends would later decide to make a group art show here in Folkestone based around these impressive lumps of concrete.

Fast forward to late 2024/early 2025 and from various conversations had with a couple of friends living here about our creative ideas and collaborating somehow, we realised that we all shared a mutual fascination with these industrial forms, and so we decided to come together and create a group exhibition, celebrating and exploring these distinctive coastal defences.

Research/Planning

We started the early months of this year with a few chats over coffee/lunch and discussed initially what we all wanted to create for the show, and ideas for how it would work and how we could all collaborate on this project.

There are many different types of concrete blocks used for coastal defence around the world, so we did some online research and found some good background information including the history of different designs and of course what they were called.

The ones we have here in Folkestone are AKMON - An anvil shaped block which takes its name from the Ancient Greek word for Anvil/Pestle (Ἄκμων). They are a Dutch design developed in 1962 by the Delft Hydraulics Laboratory.

There are many other modern designs now made from different materials, but we made the page shown below to frame for the exhibition, to highlight the earliest concrete designs and their backgrounds.

In the months that followed (late Spring and through the Summer) and in the time we all had around work/family life we all focused on creating our own quite different work for the show, and we stayed in touch constantly to discuss everything, update each other, come up with more ideas for the show and its promotion and think more about what we would do in the exhibition space.

We tried to make sure that it was as stress-free as possible as we are all super busy and it was a genuinely collaborative effort. It is one project that I know we all feel very proud of now that it is installed and out there and we have agreed to continue working together as a collective.

What follows is a brief visual summary of the four of us and what we all created for the AKMON exhibition (using images of pages from our show zine which Ophie OG created in the run up to the launch). All of the pieces pictured on the pages below are also available to buy from the show.

Promotion

Admittedly it took us a while over the summer to finalise a date to launch the show, just to make sure we were all available for an opening event and that we would have everything ready in time, and we eventually settled on Sunday 17th August.

To promote the show and spread the word locally Ophie also designed the poster below which we put up around town, and we had some smaller versions printed to distribute flyers.

During the later part of summer we shared various teasers on Instagram of what we were working on behind the scenes, what the exhibition was all about and when/where it would be running.

Installation

The space that we were all very happy to use was Aimee’s studio/shop on the Old High Street in Folkestone. Its a beautiful space, and it was the perfect size and feel for our show.

After an early start we successfully installed everything on the morning of the 17th August, including the window vinyl you can see below and at 2pm we opened the doors…

Launch Event

The launch was absolutely amazing! It was a beautiful sunny day, after quite a grey/cloudy week and so many people came through the doors during the afternoon and early evening, both good friends and passers by.

I think we were all blown away by the turn out and the appreciation for what we had put together ourselves in celebration of these concrete blocks. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work (with a lot of Whatsapp messages and a few last minute panics) and I think its fair to say we were all super proud of the show!!

Now the show is open it is running until 19th October, so please do pop along and see it if you’re in Folkestone over the next couple of months and let us know what you think.

Thanks to everyone who has visited the show or is planning on visiting, and thank you for all of the support and feedback.

Luke

We are all on Instagram if you’d like to follow us and see updates about the show and opening times etc.

Luke Wayman @35mm_monochrome

FX Boisson @fxboisson

Ophie OG @ophieog

Aimee Craddock @aimeecraddockjewellery

lukewayman.com