FAB 2024 - the waters of sulis & beyond
“Now is the time to hear our rivers speak, and to speak up for them.”
From 24 May to 9 June 2024, Josie curated the work of 14 artists selected in response to her Fringe Arts Bath (FAB) call-out.
This call-out sought abstract, eco-consciously created photographic art reflecting the submitting artist’s relationship with freshwater.
It has been instigated by the dire state of the UK’s rivers, with none currently classed as free from chemical contamination. The call-out has also been inspired by Josie’s PhD research into abstract, eco-conscious photography and phytoremediation as a mediator between human freshwater need and river health.
The selected work has been collated in a limited edition zine and shared at the festival’s participating venues. A river walk and cyanotype workshop led by Josie and an eco-acoustic riverside intervention led by Dr Harry Ovington in Bath, along with an artists’ Q&A, took place on Saturday 1 June.
Viewers of The Waters of Sulis & Beyond are invited to take part in Josie’s PHD research with Falmouth University.
If you can, please take part in an anonymous short research questionnaire to share how you respond to abstract photography and the images you have seen through The Waters of Sulis & Beyond. Please click the Abstract Photography Survey button below to find out more.
Please email Josie via jp196245@falmouth.ac.uk if you have any questions relating to the PhD and/or the survey.
Discover more about the participating artists below, plus an extra few creatives who submitted work, and although not selected for the zine are highly commended.
Selected Artists
COLLABORATORS
Dr Harry Ovington is a Composer and Sound Artist focusing on connecting the natural environment to sound and raising ecological awareness.
His underwater recordings reveal the song of freshwater as it copes with pollution from human-made sources.
Bath Water is a collection of audio pieces gathered and composed during the turning months, from winter to spring 2024. They illustrate various audible phenomena that’s found along the Midford Brook, at tributary of the River Avon, and its various connecting blue spaces. The pieces consist of field recordings and synthesised sonifications, sometimes mixed and sometimes separate.
The field recordings capture life and movement, from perspectives not usually available to human hearing (with underwater microphones and sound processing techniques), whilst the sonifications use environmental data about water pollution to control and modulate synthesisers.
Some of the pieces are presented alongside interpretive texts which attempt to capture Harry’s thoughts at the time of recording, and also go some way to explaining the natural processes which inspired those particular recordings. You can read these here and in the zine.
George’s Pond Thursday 21st March 2024
I stood by one of George’s ponds for over an hour.
The day before, I had listened to the clearer pond
and noticed palmate newts and the throttle of a frog
with no known origin.
Today though, in the other pond
I listened to the immediate surface layer of duckweed and algae.
Gas released by photosynthesis,
Creaks, bursts, fizzed release, new life heard as natural decompression.
The sound behaved according to sunlight
and built in abundance with unobscured heat.
With this in mind,
I realised I could now hear the clouds passing over me.
Overnight Rain Tuesday 2nd April 2024
These used to excite me,
Waterfalls formed overnight in place of tiny inland cliffs.
I’d take it as a sign that I’d slept well
and missed the overnight rain.
Using the slope of the land to find larger masses,
the cascading water is a link between nature and mindfulness,
White noise.
The noise is swallowed by the Midford Brook,
Swallowed with no consideration for what may be within the liquid sound.
What may have washed off the land,
By the overnight rain.
Highly Commended artists
