Watery thoughts (one)
Art and Energy’s Jenny shares some of her thoughts on the Our Land Flows project…
I’ve always been drawn to water. I grew up just outside of Portsmouth and have many fond memories dinghy sailing and splashing in rivers (an activity my children now love too!)…. my dad was a met-man (weather forecaster) in the Navy, I remember him visiting my school to do a talk about the water cycle… and obviously I drink and wash-in and depend on water… but I hadn’t really thought much about where that water comes from until recently.
Working on the Our Land Flows project has opened my eyes to yet another way of looking at the world - the flow of fresh water, the way it interacts with the landscape through which it passes and the way that we interact with it. I’ve always been interested in water flow, but this project has given a wonderful opportunity to immerse myself in it (sometimes quite literally!).
Over the last few years, as part of the How to Bury the Giant project, I’ve loved learning about tiny mosses, their incredible heritage, peatland restoration and so much more… I’ve delivered countless workshops creating The Mossy Carpet and exchanged mossy facts with so many wonderful participants…but whilst focusing on this beautiful verdant green, I have to confess to not thinking so much about the blue that runs through it.
I loved creating the Peat to Pipe artwork, it felt very playful... and then inviting others to join in to ‘make it rain’ and consider the journey the water then goes on... it seemed to attract people of all ages and backgrounds and survived some quite robust and curious interaction when we shared it at Market Hall.
I have to admit to being shocked by how few people know where the water comes from before it pours from their tap at home... I was very fortunate to visit the Plymouth Mayflower Water Treatment Plant a couple of years ago - I think I’ve been looking at fresh water supply in a very different way since (apologies to family and friends who’ve heard me wax lyrical about water… it’s only going o get more so with this project!). I really wish there were more opportunities for people to visit this sort of infrastructure - how else are we supposed to understand these systems that we depend upon and adapt to their limitations?
When we applied for the funding earlier in the year flooding was on-topic, yet during delivery of the event at Market Hall we were mid drought with a hosepipe ban in place. I was inspired by hearing the ways people are preserving water both in their homes and out on the land.
Most visitors to the Market Hall had arrived for a coffee or the film - they didn’t know we would be there but were delighted to dive in and explore our displays and artworks. I think that for many it added a whole new element - after the passive experience of watching the David Attenborough film the hands-on interactive artworks and displays gave a new grounding - from focusing on the wildlife in the film to thinking about how all they had just learnt about depends on water which we so often take for granted even on such a hot summer day!
I particularly enjoyed hearing the many different perspectives at our Our Land Flows Discussion event on the 19th August. I think in a future existence I would like to return as hydrologist - carefully tending that flow, steering it through trial and error and yet knowing that the water will have the last word. I’m excited to learn even more at the next two events.
I love this stage of a new project, where you open your eyes to a new topic and suddenly become aware of its relevance and others’ interest and knowledge - this FiPL funding has enabled us to bring in more people at this earlier stage, exploring more nuanced perspectives and attitudes, which will lead to a richer message for things yet to come.
