Estuary 2021 is the second edition of the large-scale arts festival that celebrates the lives, landscapes and histories of the spectacular Thames Estuary.

Taking place on the river itself, and along the 107 miles of South Essex and North Kent coastline, contemporary artworks, discussion and events explore and respond to powerful themes resonant to the estuary.

Artist duo Webb-Ellis have regularly involved young people in their projects, as willing participants and active collaborators, and the two-screen For The First Baby Born in Space is no exception. A message in a bottle floated out in to the wide blue yonder, a diary entry posted to a future iteration of ourselves, it is both an apology for the sins of the forebears and an effort to reach out to make things right. Filmed during the extraordinary long, hot summer of 2018, the piece features a number of teenagers from the artists’ home base of North Yorkshire and elsewhere. Talking to them about their hopes and aspirations and listening to them about their fears, it records how their coming of age coincides with a time when so much else is in flux.