I remember summer beach days with friends, digging deep into the sand, filling buckets, taking respite dips in the ocean, and repeatedly trying with little success, to brush clinging sand from my skin and wet bathing suit. So much energy expended to construct our palatial and sprawling sandcastles that by next morning would be washed to sea.    

Childhood sandcastles were ephemeral and we accepted their ultimate fates.  Sometimes we went to heroic measures to preserve our creations as returning tides sipped at their boundaries. Mostly we were just as happy to return the next day to begin again.

As adults we prefer our Sand Castles to be more permanent, yet still in reach of those lapping tides.  Our desire for a palpable connection to the ocean rhythms, flying sand, and salt mist air can be so irresistible we go to extraordinary means to challenge nature's boundaries.   Sometimes nature strikes back.  Such is the case along stretches of the Pacific Coast of North America - where lately we have seen the effects of coastal erosion on homes that have literally fallen into the sea.

Sand Castles explores the fine line we tread when we push on nature's boundaries. Built as ocean side family retreats, the Sand Castles fight a permanent, relentless battle with encroaching, shifting and tenacious sand dunes. In communities designed to be a holiday maker's paradise, residents face overwhelming challenges to keep the dunes at bay. Evidence suggests, just as the daily rhythm of ocean tides surely took back our childhood creations, that indeed in some cases, the dunes are reclaiming what they find to be rightfully theirs.