Pebbleheads

How it all began...

While looking for interesting things on a beach in the early 1980’s, it occurred to me that it would be great to find something totally unexpected. With this in mind I began to make small ceramic objects and left them on beaches for others to find. Originally these objects took the form of pebbles with dotted lines on them, and later with small human faces. I think it would be mystifying to pick up a pebble and find a face on it. That was in 1985 and since then I have put them in many places for someone to find and also given them to people I hear are travelling to somewhere interesting.

In the early 90’s, as well as leaving them for people to find, I also began to put the pebbleheads in totally inaccessible places where I thought it would be impossible for them to be found. For example, some were dropped in the Java trench off Christmas island. Having those pebbleheads 7 kilometres down in the black water with all those bizarre bathepelagic creatures swimming around, is somehow a comforting constant for me. Things may change from year to year in our lives, but those little heads will be down there forever. For the same reason I have put some in my bin so that they will be buried at the local landfill site deep under the ground.

I have called this the immortality project because anyone can place a pebblehead for themselves in a place beyond reach or leave it on a beach to brighten someone’s day or simply put it in their garden. Wherever they are placed, they are virtually indestructible. The location of the pebbleheads and the name of the person who placed them is kept on a database by me to document the project and the location only is added to the list on this website. Pebblehead locations and other enquiries can be sent to pebbleheads@gmail.com

Kevin Elkington