Following hot on the heels of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference, focus group activities, and the bonus of the ‘Watershed’ event (see previous posts for Parts 1, 2 and 3), the next phase of the Joy Welch project (“Giving Voices to Rivers: Promoting Creative Engagements Through Art-Science Collaborations”) involved an open public event at Aberystwyth University. The event was timed to coincide with World Rivers Day (WRD) 2023, which is held annually on the 4th Sunday of every September (so this year 24th September). The inaugural WRD was held in 2005 to coincide with the United Nations launch of the Water for Life Decade, and has since grown to involve activities in more than 100 countries worldwide (see https://worldriversday.com). WRD “highlights the many values of our rivers, strives to increase public awareness, and encourages the improved stewardship of all rivers around the world.”
To our knowledge, our event was the first WRD event to held at Aberystwyth University. Organised around the theme of “What do rivers mean to you?”, various interactive displays and exhibits on C floor of the university’s Llandinam Building were intended to provide a stimulus for reflection and discussion, and to enable people to engage creatively with river topics, whether that be river hydrology, geomorphology, ecology, or wider cultural aspects.
Between 40 and 50 people attended the afternoon event, with really good engagement from all present. A selection of photos from the event is below (click to enlarge images in a separate window).
The More Than Minutes team produced another excellent poster summarising people’s varied responses to the day’s theme (click to enlarge image in a separate window).
Along with the focus group discussions, the WRD event provided plenty of ideas for the final stages of the Joy Welch project, which will revolve around using the arts to promote creative engagements with ‘real world’ rivers in the local context. How can we engage creatively with the Afon Rheidol, with its mix of semi-natural and mine waste and dam-impacted reaches, or the smaller, less impacted rivers flowing through areas of woodland in and around Aberystwyth? Can we raise awareness of the ‘hidden hydrological histories’ of Aberystwyth? Can these engagements help improve physical and mental wellbeing and help build a stronger sense of community?
Parts 1 and 2 of this series of posts have documented the start of the Joy Welch project entitled “Giving Voices to Rivers: Promoting Creative Engagements Through Art-Science Collaborations”. By chance, the focus group discussion (outlined in Part 2) nearly coincided in time with an event entitled ‘Watershed: A Celebration of Art Inspired by Water, Land and People’. The event was convened to highlight the outputs from the Artists in Residence scheme that has been running in the Elan Valley for nearly a decade, to share experiences and learn lessons that can be taken forward into future residency or fellowship programmes, and more broadly to discuss the value of the arts in a rural context.
Some context is helpful here. The Elan Valley (Cwm Elan in Welsh) is located in the Cambrian Mountains in mid Wales, with the Afon Elan (River Elan) being a tributary of the Afon Gwy (River Wye). Between the end of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century, a series of six large dams (Craig Goch, Pen-y-Garreg, Garreg Ddu, Caban Goch, Dôl-y-Mynach, Claerwen) were built in the valley to provide drinking water for the English city of Birmingham, and later were engineered to produce hydropower. Today, the 180 km2 Elan Valley Estate is managed in a partnership between the Elan Valley Trust and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water. The main function of the Estate is to ensure the supply of clean water from the catchment (alternatively, the ‘watershed’), and so the land is managed accordingly. The whole area falls within the Cambrian Mountains Environmentally Sensitive area (ESA), is a Special Protection Area (SPA) for wild birds, has Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) for habitats, and 12 separate Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) have been designated. Also within the Estate is the Claerwen National Nature Reserve, with its 800 hectares of upland plateaux and gently rolling hills covered with acid grassland and, in parts, blanket bog. On the reserve, grazing has been reduced to protect species like bog mosses, bog rosemary, cotton grasses and heather.
Map of mid Wales, showing the Ystwyth and Elan river catchments and the locations of the Elan Valley dams (from Griffiths et al., 2017)2
On the face of it then, the valley should be high in biodiversity, while also having many geodiversity and cultural attributes. These natural and cultural heritage values are at the heart of the tourism marketing strategy for the Valley (see https://elanvalley.org.uk/#), and are heavily promoted through the National Heritage Lottery funded Elan Links scheme (https://elanvalley.org.uk/about/elan-links/), which aims to “secure this heritage and boost the opportunities available in the Elan Valley for the future”. On the Elan Valley website, and in the abundant associated tourist promotional material, the main message – what I call hereafter the “dominant narrative” – is that although human activities have helped shape the valley, the area is an “open, isolated and wild landscape” with “natural beauty everywhere” (for example, see https://elanvalley.org.uk/explore/the-estate/). A 2016 book1 that reported on a pilot phase of the Artists in Residence scheme contained a foreword from the Chief Executive of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water that even stated:
“The innovative Victorian engineers and their counterparts in the 1950s achieved an epic engineering feat at Elan Valley, and one that is all the more to be celebrated in the way the man made monoliths in these valleys have become a defining and, almost, natural part of the very landscape that surround and feed them.”
There’s little need to question the “epic engineering feat” that undoubtedly has improved sanitation and saved lives in faraway towns and cities. But can we really be expected to swallow the notion of six large concrete dams being an “almost, natural” part of the Elan Valley landscape?
View of Craig Coch dam
So, back to the Artists in Residence scheme and the ‘Watershed’ event. Along with other organisations, Aberystwyth University has been working in partnership with the Elan Valley Trust to give artists the opportunity to have a residency for two months: one month in Aberystwyth and then one month in a cottage in the Elan Valley. The residencies have focused on use of the land, including in the context of water from Wales that ultimately is used in England, the threats occasioned by global climate change, and the relationship between agriculture and proposed re-wilding. The ‘Watershed’ event was billed as a chance for former artists in residence to come together to discuss these topics and address how the arts more generally can contribute to such conversations.
The event was held on Friday 22nd September 2022, and involved a full day of performance and discussion, with artworks also on display. The main venue was the theatre space at CARAD (Community Arts Rhayader And District) in mid Wales, but also there was an afternoon coach trip around the Elan Valley, with a stop at historic Penbont House for musical and sonic performances from some of the former artists in residence.
At the time of our application to the Joy Welch Research Fund, Hywel and I didn’t know about the ‘Watershed’ event, but it promised to dovetail perfectly with our project’s objectives. The Elan Valley setting provides an opportunity to examine to what extent the voices of rivers such as the Afon Elan can still be heard: are they still present in the valley, or have the dams, reservoirs and associated water transfer infrastructure muted, altered, or entirely suppressed their voices?
To some extent, Hywel, myself and others had contemplated these issues during a day trip around the valley back in December 2015. Six of us had travelled from the mouth of the Afon Ystwyth in Aberystwyth to its upper reaches at Cwmystwyth, one of the most important historical lead mining sites in the United Kingdom, and then we had travelled eastward across the drainage divide into and through Cwm Elan. This trip had inspired poetry and creative writing, and eventually we brought the pieces together in an article for the journal ‘GeoHumanities’ and considered whether the Elan Valley can be seen emblematic of the ‘anthroposcenic’.2 This term is a play on the geological term ‘Anthropocene’ and had been defined by myself in a March 2016 blog as “landscapes that have come to be viewed as picturesque (i.e. ‘scenic’) but that actually are in a far-from-natural, highly-altered state” (see https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/a-glossary-for-the-anthropocene/). Our article included some discussion around the aptness of this definition and other meanings of the ‘anthroposcenic’ in the Elan Valley context. The poems, creative writing and discussions certainly questioned the “dominant narrative” outlined above. As an example, a repeated line in Hywel’s bilingual poem ‘Cwm Elan // Elan Valley’ highlights the impacts of the dams on the natural functioning of the river networks, particularly the enforced disconnection between upland water and sediment sources and their intended ocean destination (“ysgarwyd y ffynhonnau bach a’r bae”//”the sources and the sink are now divorced”). Similarly, Eurig Salisbury’s satirical poem takes some hard swipes at aspects of tourist promotional strategies, with the Elan water supply scheme being said to have “… now developed into a complete / hydrological cycle, / as the water being drunk in the Midlands / is returned to the land as runoff / from the thousands of incomers who kindly / piss it all back in our lay-bys and friendly visitor centre.”). I have long since wondered whether our particular take on the area would have upset the Elan Valley Trust and others who work to promote the “dominant narrative” but not really being linked into these tourism and management networks, I have no real way of knowing.
View of the reservoir (left) and the Elan Valley Visitor Centre (right) from near the Caban Coch dam wall
During the ‘Watershed’ event, I was curious to see to what extent the artists in residence had grappled with similar sorts of tensions, particularly given the context of their funding. Had they also questioned the “dominant narrative”, or other ‘official’ narratives, that pervade the Elan valley? Had there been any attempts to address the changing ‘voice’ of the landscape brought about by the dams and reservoirs, and the voice of the rivers in particular?
The short answer to these questions is a qualified ‘yes’. Many artworks on display at CARAD, some of the performances at CARAD and Penbont House, and some of the day’s discussions did raise questions and address tensions over the social dislocation, heritage losses (e.g. buildings, place names), and the aesthetic changes that accompanied the era of dam building and the subsequent rising of reservoir waters. There was some questioning of really just how biodiverse the Elan Valley is, and how much more biodiverse it could be with reduction of sheep grazing and alternative land management strategies, perhaps including elements of re-wilding. A sonic performance by Isa Suarez3 captured elements of the River Elan soundscape, prompting contemplation of the extent to which the river’s above and below surface musicality might have been changed.
Some of these questions and tensions repeated or amplified issues that had been raised by some of the artists’ contributions to the 2016 book1 and their subsequent exhibitions (see, for example, Mike Perry and his ‘Elan Valley’ and ‘Wet Desert’ photographic essays4) and also spilled over into afternoon discussion at CARAD about the shape of any future Artist in Residence or fellowship programmes. Should the briefs for such programmes be more overtly political, and encourage artists to promote visions of future management that might not just be about ensuring security of water quality supply but also about wider environmental and social sustainability? The lively discussion demonstrated that any consensus around this type of question likely will be slow to emerge, if it emerges at all.
Overall though, it seems to me that the “dominant narrative” is at least being questioned by a number of artists, and perhaps more so than I had realised. After the event, Dewi Roberts brought to my attention the “Cofiwch Cwm Elan” (“Remember Elan Valley”) slogan painted on a roadside rock outcrop between the Garreg Ddu and Caban Coch reservoirs. This slogan is in the style of the better known “Cofiwch Dryweryn” (“Remember Tryweryn”) example that was painted on the wall of a ruined cottage to highlight the 1965 flooding of a rural, north Wales community as part of a water supply scheme for Liverpool (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofiwch_Dryweryn). “Cofiwch Dryweryn” has since become a prominent political slogan throughout Wales. These slogans are a visible reminder of the social, historical, political and environmental tensions that inevitably arise in any land or water management decisions.
The ‘Cofiwch Cwm Elan’ (‘Remember Elan Valley’) slogan (photo by Dewi Roberts)
But for some of us, the questioning of the “dominant narrative” – and any associated visible slogans – don’t go quite far enough in the Elan Valley. What about “Cofiwch Afon Elan” (“Remember River Elan”)? More specifically, what about remembering the full voice of River Elan? Notwithstanding Isa Suarez’s sonic performance, the major changes to the natural functioning of the valley’s rivers that have been brought about by the dams – and the loss or suppression of their natural voice along with related aspects of geoheritage – seem to be the elephant in the room. Pont Hyllfan (‘pont’ meaning bridge, and ‘Hyllfan’ meaning rough rock), located below the Pen-y-Garreg dam and within the limits of the fluctuating level of the Garreg Ddu reservoir downstream, illustrates this collective blind spot perfectly. Pont Hyllfan is located near historic Penbont House, and itself is a site of considerable natural and cultural significance, as Dewi, Hywel and I have addressed in our book about Welsh river potholes5 (see also https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2022/11/). William Lisle Bowles was a nature poet and contemporary of William Wordsworth, and in his lengthy poem From Coombe-Ellen (1798), he describes in vivid terms his visit to Cwm Elan. The following extract most likely relates to Pont Hyllfan:
“And lo! the footway plank, that leads across
The narrow torrent, foaming through the chasm
Below; the rugged stones are washed and worn
Into a thousand shapes, and hollows scooped
By long attrition of the ceaseless surge,
Smooth, deep, and polished as the marble urn,
In their hard forms. Here let us sit, and watch
The struggling current burst its headlong way,
Hearing the noise it makes, and musing much
On the strange chances of this nether world.
How many ages must have swept to dust
The still succeeding multitudes that “fret
Their little hour” upon this restless scene,
Or ere the sweeping waters could have cut
The solid rock so deep! As now its roar
Comes hollow from below, methinks we hear
The noise of generations as they pass.”
Historical photographs show both the ‘footway plank’ and the gorge in its natural state, and also the ‘smooth, deep, and polished’ potholes and other sculpted bedrock forms. A stone road bridge long ago replaced the plank, and today the ‘ceaseless surge’ has been tamed by the impoundments of floodwaters behind the upstream dam, while the gorge, potholes and sculpted forms are commonly submerged owing to maintenance of artificially high water levels in the downstream reservoir. Nevertheless, at times of low reservoir water level, the gorge can still be explored, with many potholes and other sculpted forms having undergone remarkably little change in the last 100 or more years.
Historical photograph (1886) of Pont Hyllfan showing the wooden footbridge over the gorge with its sculpted bedrock forms.Modern view of Pont Hyllfan at low flow (photo by Dewi Roberts)
So, Pont Hyllfan is an historic site, a site that has inspired creativity, and a site of considerable aesthetic and geoscience educational value. This is indeed a geoheritage site, but one that is widely underappreciated. In this particular case, thankfully the geoheritage is not destroyed or even damaged by the long periods of submergence beneath the tranquil reservoir waters but instead is lost from consciousness, so that even when exposed and accessible it goes unnoticed by many visitors.
Of course, at a time of environmental, social and economic turmoil, there are debates to be had about the trade offs between ensuring safe water supplies and loss or suppression of natural and cultural heritage, particularly in cross-border contexts and against the backdrop of an increasingly disUnited Kingdom. But to have informed debates, the full inventory of trade offs first needs to be recognised.
Somewhat ironically, the afternoon trip to the Elan Valley that formed part of the ‘Watershed’ event coincided with low water levels at Pont Hyllfan. Here was a potential chance to discuss this particular aspect of the Elan Valley’s heritage to complement the loss or suppression of other heritage elements highlighted in the displayed artworks, performances, and discussions. But as our coach passed over Pont Hyllfan without there being any thought of slowing to allow more than a quick glance over the side of the bridge, let along a stop for longer contemplation, it is obvious that this particular trade off is not recognised at all.
References:
1. Arts Council of Wales (2016), APTElan 1. Arts Council of Wales in association with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water.
2. Griffiths, H.M., Goodwin, G., Keevil, T., Salisbury, E., Tooth, S. and Roberts, D. (2017), Searching for an Anthropo(s)cene in the uplands of mid Wales. GeoHumanities, 3 (2), pp. 567-579 (DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2017.1329631).
5. Roberts, D., Tooth, S. and Griffiths, H.M. (2022), The River and The Rock: River Potholes of Wales, Llanrwst: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 132 pp. // Roberts, D., Griffiths, H.M. and Tooth, S. (2022), Yr Afon a’r Craig: Ceubyllau Afonydd Cymru, Llanrwst: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 132 pp.
Part 1 of this series of posts highlighted the start of a year-long project (August 2023 through July 2024) that has been facilitated by a small research grant from the Joy Welch Educational Charitable Trust to myself and Hywel Griffiths (http://hywelgriffiths.cymru/en/hafan/home/). Our project is entitled “Giving Voices to Rivers: Promoting Creative Engagements Through Art-Science Collaborations”.
One of the key stimuli for the project was Gary Brierley’s book, published in 2020 with the intriguing title of “Finding the Voice of the River: Beyond Restoration and Management”. A central, overarching question addressed by this book is as follows: despite escalating demands on river resources, can we find ways to forge more positive societal relationships with rivers? In spring 2023, I had been invited to review this book for ‘The AAG Review of Books’,1 but given the author’s intended “generalist audience”, I thought that it would be interesting to elicit reactions and opinions from a range of people in and outside of academia. So, with the Joy Welch project funding, a focus group was established. With myself as chair, the group included seven other people with various interests in rivers and their wider riverscapes, including in relation to science, creative practices (e.g. painting, music, participatory art, poetry), river recreation (e.g. wild swimming, snorkelling, kayaking), and outdoor environmental education. The focus group was held during a two-hour slot on Aberystwyth University campus in mid September 2023. Focus group participants had been asked to read the book with the following questions in mind: 1) What is your general impression of the book (e.g. accessibility/readability, structure)?; 2) What do you think are the three best points about the book? What do you think are the three less good/worst points?; 3) One of the author’s main argument is that we should contemplate the agency of rivers as sentient entities (‘place beings’), as this viewpoint will enable better relations with rivers, with each other, and with the world. Do you think this philosophical viewpoint is likely to be helpful or a hindrance for achieving this end?; 4) To what extent can artistic approaches or art-science approaches help with ‘finding the voice of the river’?
These four sets of question provided the structure for discussion. Two artists from the More Than Minutes team provided a summary of discussion in the form of visual minutes.
Overall, the book was well received by all the focus group participants. Despite some limitations or weaknesses – some of the key ones being an arguably rather ‘dry’, academic writing style, and a lack of any illustrations of rivers and their diversity, even on the cover – the author was praised for confronting some serious issues and so catalysing important conversations about our relationships with rivers. There was perhaps mixed opinion on whether viewing rivers as sentient beings is helpful or a hindrance for facilitating better relations with rivers, although there was general agreement that recognising the ‘rights of rivers’ – and therefore the need to assign ‘personhood’ – could be a useful legal device for ensuring improved environmental management.
Notes from the focus group
From the perspective of the Joy Welch project, the most useful discussions were those that addressed the role of the arts in helping to ‘find the voice of the river’. The book itself nods towards the role of the arts but contains few examples or details. Among many important points raised in this part of the focus group discussion, several can be highlighted, including: the value of focusing on the processes of creative engagement with rivers rather than necessarily just on the outputs; that the documentation of those processes of engagement is important and could in fact form the basis for outputs; the interplay between traditional art forms (painting, drawing etc.), digital art, and participatory art practices in giving voice to rivers; how the arts can help us to embrace the inherent uncertainties involved in contemplating river futures; whether the sciences and the arts are too separated in school educational curricula; and the role of the arts in support of river activism, or legal action against river polluters.
The poster produced by the More Than Minutes team to capture the focus group discussions
Many of these questions build upon my contribution to the RGS-IBG’s guide to ‘Communicating Research beyond the Academy’ and also complement some of the presentations at the recent RGS-IBG Annual Conference (see previous post). Other planned Joy Welch project activities – to be documented in subsequent posts – will enable us to trial some of the art-science collaborative ideas raised in the discussions.
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1My formal review of Gary’s book is now published:
Tooth, S. (2023). Finding the Voice of the River: Beyond Restoration and Management. The AAG Review of Books, 11: 9-10, DOI: 10.1080/2325548X.2023.2240962.
Acknowledgements
I give thanks to the Joy Welch Educational Charitable Trust for the funding that enabled the focus group to be held and the visual minutes to be recorded.
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