Vraiqu’sie: A Celebration of Jersey’s seaweed heritage

The Moving Arts Collective, in partnership with Jersey Heritage and Société Jersiaise, is proud to present Vraiqu’sie, a collaborative, artist-led exhibition reimagining vraicking – Jersey’s traditional seaweed-gathering practice – as a ritual connecting land, sea, creatures and people.

Created collaboratively by six artists – Karen Le Roy Harris, Natasha Dettman, Margarida Lourenco-Olivier, Esther Rose Parkes, Kerry-Jane Warner and Blessed Ndlovu – and produced by The Moving Arts Collective, the exhibition brings together film, sculpture, sound, costumes, textiles, dyes and drawings developed through the artists’ shared journey. Newly composed songs in Jèrriais connect language, land and sea, recalling knowledge embedded in the tongue of the land.

Developed through exploration of intertidal landscapes via walks, archival research and collaboration with foragers, marine biologists and ethnobotanists, Vraiqu’sie reimagines the rhythms, labour and ritual of vraicking. Central to the exhibition is a film that immerses viewers in the landscape and follows a procession of vraiqu’rêsses (female seaweed gatherers) along historic vraicking paths as they honour the relationship between land and sea.

Performers wear sculptural forms crafted from willow and local seaweeds. Vrai (seaweed) becomes both material and metaphor – carrying heritage, shaping the body and inspiring sound and visual forms – while reconnecting audiences to the language, labour and landscapes of the island. The work invites reflection on the spirit of reciprocity between land, sea and all who inhabit the intertidal landscape.

The exhibition encourages visitors to reflect on Jersey’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, communal practice and the interconnection between human and non human life, offering a space to reimagine these relationships.

Karen Le Roy Harris, artist and project producer, The Moving Arts Collective said: “This has been a truly collaborative project, working together for a common purpose – much like vraicking itself. I feel privileged to work with such dedicated and inspiring artists, whose passion, diverse skills, and experiences have come together to create something very special.

“The whole process has been magical. It has allowed me to reconnect deeply with Jersey, its landscapes, and the knowledge this place holds, showing how much we can learn from the land, sea and each other. Vraiqu’sie has opened my eyes to vrai – a diverse material with endless possibilities. Understanding its history, its role in agriculture, and its capacity to communicate the rhythms of tides and seasons has been revelatory. Working with seaweed has been a joy, both materially and conceptually, and has enriched everything we have created in this exhibition.”

Rebecca Bailhache, CEO, Société Jersiaise said: “Vraiqu’sie beautifully honours one of Jersey’s most meaningful traditional practices by weaving together art, language, landscape and community. At the Société Jersiaise, we are proud to support a project that celebrates our Island’s rich Intangible Cultural Heritage. This collaboration demonstrates the power of creativity in keeping our heritage alive and relevant, and we are delighted to see vraicking reinterpreted with such depth, respect and vision.”

Vic Tanner Davy, Jersey Heritage’s Head of Programmes, said: “Jersey Heritage is delighted to be hosting ‘Vraiqu’sie’ in the newly restored Military Hospital at Elizabeth Castle. The natural materials used by the artists of the Moving Arts Collective sympathetically complement the rooms of an historic building that overlooks seabirds and seaweed-covered rocks in the bay. The intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of vraicking explored by the exhibition is one of the expressions of interest collected from the public last year as part of our ICH project. It is an activity that still resonates with people as quintessentially ‘Jersey’, and one that is enjoying a resurgence with farmers looking for sustainable farming methods. The exhibition enhances work that Jersey Heritage is already doing to share the story of vraicking with our visitors. We hope that it will charm and intrigue people.”