READERS 3.1 (in-person) // Coral Empire by Ann Elias

For this session of READERS we have teamed up with our dear friend Christina Riley: writer, photographer, artist and founder of The Nature Library who has chosen this session's text.

CORAL EMPIRE by Ann Elias traces the visual and social history of coral reefs through the works of John Ernest Williamson in the Bahamas and Frank Hurley in Australia. The book explores how their modern media spectacles yoked the tropics and coral reefs to colonialism, racism, and the human domination of nature and how their reckless treatment of the sea prefigured attitudes that caused the environmental crises that the oceans and reefs now face. Using the labour and knowledge of indigenous peoples while exoticizing and racializing them as inferior Others, Williamson and Hurley sustained colonial fantasies about people of color and the environment as endless resources to be plundered. In the selected chapter, Mad Love, Elias looks at the way the visual spontaneity of underwater photography appealed to the Surrealist movement's attraction to "figuration, dream images and hallucinations", suggesting that "a diver, like an artist, symbolised an explorer of the unconscious".

We will be focusing on the first chapter, Mad Love, which looks at why the undersea was a draw for the Surrealist movement, from the effect Williamson's photograph had on them to the increasing access they had to underwater visuals. We will make a digital version of the selected text available in time to read before the event, if you don't have access to your own copy. We are looking forward to welcoming Christina Riley to Edinburgh to guide us through a discussion on the chosen text, and to talk a bit about The Nature Library and her own upcoming publication which is due to be released on 6th November, and which you can pre-order by clicking the link above.

READERS is designed to be accessible regardless of academic background. You're encouraged to read the essay in full, but please do not feel put off if you cannot finish it or struggle with its content. That's what the discussion is for!

• “Ann Elias's Coral Empire is as intoxicating as a plunge into a reef lagoon: a refreshingly original and compelling analysis of how the underwater coral realm has evolved from a planetary space of fathomless mysteries and alien terrors to become a complex technology-driven spectacle that feeds the rampant imaginations, pleasures, vices, and curiosities of modern humans.” - Iain McCalman, author of The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

• “Coral Empires is a brilliantly researched, aesthetically nuanced study of early photographic and film imagery representing coral reefs, one of the most gorgeous areas of the undersea, which is the least explored dimension of the blue humanities. Focusing on how coral came to be captured and exhibited in visual media of the twentieth century, and expanding to coral's transformed presence in museological displays, Ann Elias shows the power of imagery and exhibition to create our imagination and relation to the inaccessible undersea. In the process, Coral Empire tracks changing human interactions with the environment of the coral reef that became a tourist destination in the early twentieth century and that is at the forefront of exhibiting the devastating impact of climate change today.” - Margaret Cohen, author of The Novel and the Sea

Christina Riley (b. 1988) was born in Florida and lives in on Ayrshire coast. With a focus on intertidal waters and the undersea, she is interested in the small details of coastal and underwater spaces and the shifts of perspective encouraged by them, encouraging new ways of seeing and experiencing our surroundings, natural and otherwise. Longlisted for Canongate's Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing she has recently been published by Gutter, Extra Teeth, The Clearing, Caught by the River, Minding Nature and Little Toller and has presented work at solo and group exhibitions across the UK. Her first photobook, The Beach Today, was published by Guillemot Press in 2021 and her debut non-fiction book, Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves will be published by Saraband in November 2025. In 2019 she started The Nature Library, exploring the role of literature in times of climate crisis.

The Nature Library is a library and reading space celebrating books which highlight the natural world in all its forms, at a time when it needs our attention the most.

Started in 2019 by Christina Riley, it began as a roving collection popping up in public spaces across Scotland and in spring 2024 opened a physical premises in Irvine, Ayrshire, taking up residence in an old shipyard worker’s flat in association with the .

This is a ticketed event with limited capacity and you must book in order to attend. All bookers will receive a digital copy of the text ahead of the session. Please note that due to building protocol we need to send names to security 1-week prior and therefore BOOKING CLOSES AT 12 NOON on THURSDAY 4TH SEPTEMBER.

Tickets work on a sliding scale, and all proceeds help AGITATE continue to operate and programme events like this. We receive no public funding and pay our speakers for their time and knowledge. The suggested ticket price for this event is £8. Thank you - your donations allow us to keep a sliding scale system in place.

READERS will take place seated in our shared studio space at Saltire Court, 20 Castle Terrace. Please arrive at reception for 6PM where one of the AGITATE team will meet you. The venue is wheelchair accessible and we will be meeting on the second floor, accessible via stairs or lift. There is an accessible toilet and plenty of quiet breakout space if needed.

READERS was created by Mayanne Soret and is now facilitated by Kat Gollock and Christina Webber. If you have any questions, please feel free to email [email protected]

Host or Publisher Agitate