About Beach of Dreams

Beach of Dreams is an invitation to join a moment of reflection and action in the month of May 2025 to discover more about our coastlines, ourselves, and our planet, in collaboration with local communities, artists, writers and scientists.

Together, through walking, talking, and making, we will consider the question “How can we creatively reimagine our future?

Beach of Dreams will offer people living and working along coastal communities the opportunity both to act locally and to be a part of a spectacular international movement, inspiring positive action to work towards a sustainable way of living underpinned by a shift in values.

Creatively connecting with the coastline will enable all of us to understand it better, empowering people and their communities to take care of themselves, each other, and their local environment.

Kinetika is working towards scaling up Beach of Dreams for May 2025. Our aim is for the coastline across the UK and Ireland to be adopted by those communities who live and work there, inviting them to make a pledge for climate action to enable future generations to experience healthy and sustainable lives.

The public will take part in a range of creative activities to help them to think through the complex challenges of climate change and to articulate their thoughts. Their dreams will be represented on 1000 naturally dyed silks, carried with them on their journey and installed at beach locations along the way.

We will encourage artists, writers, environmental activists, and scientists to lead walks engaging communities to respond creatively to the landscape and the climate emergency. 1000 Pledges and stories from across the UK and Ireland will be shared across digital platforms and used to influence decision-makers at a local and national level.

Beach of Dreams will bring together a partnership of arts, cultural, environmental, and community organisations across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland.

More than 200 organisations from the arts, environment and walking sectors have already expressed an interest in taking part.

We will extend the offer to international partners to echo this activity globally through our involvement with the World Trails Network.

Beach of Dreams began in July 2021 as a 500-mile creative walk from Lowestoft to Tilbury initiated by arts organisation Kinetika, led by artistic director Ali Pretty in partnership with Rosa Productions.

We invited individuals to adopt a mile, to photograph/draw and write about their connection to their mile of coastline, and then to look out to the horizon as far as they could see and imagine how this mile might be for their great, great, great grandchildren. The images were translated onto 500 hand-painted, handwoven naturally dyed silk pennants that were installed at various beach locations en route and carried all the way by participants. Their stories and dreams of the future were shared on an online Story Map.

Kinetika and Rosa Productions were commissioned by Morecambe Bay Partnership to create ‘Bay Lines’ – Beach of Dreams in Morecambe Bay. This participatory programme saw the creation of a further collection of 120 naturally dyed silk pennants, and a series of beautifully presented digital stories inspired by the coastline from Fleetwood to Walney Island.

Imagery on page (c) Mike Johnston, Tessa Bunney and Ali Pretty, unless otherwise stated. 

Thanks to our amazing partners who are helping us make Beach of Dreams happen now and into the future.

Kinetika is an internationally renowned female-led company with a 25-year track record of combining world-class bespoke designs on large-scale hand-painted silks with community projects to produce spectacular outdoor events that engage diverse audiences wherever they work. Founded by artist Ali Pretty in 1997, inspired by her training in carnival arts in Trinidad and India, Kinetika now has an unrivalled reputation for working with local communities on projects that change the way people feel about where they live. Based in Purfleet since 2014, Kinetika delivers activity both at ‘home’ in Thurrock and ‘away’ across the UK and abroad.

Kinetika with The Thank You Dance at The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant, June 2022 (c) Matt Crossick/PA Wire