The previous post reflected on the ‘Hidden Hydrological Histories of Aberystwyth’ walking tour (https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2024/05/26/giving-voices-to-rivers-the-role-of-art-science-collaborations-part-5/), the first of the spring activities associated with the final phase of Joy Welch project (“Giving Voices to Rivers: Promoting Creative Engagements Through Art-Science Collaborations”). The second activity, held on Saturday 8th June 2024, involved an open public event at Cwmrheidol, a bedrock-influenced stretch of the middle Afon Rheidol, located nearly 1.75 km river distance downstream of Pontarfynach/Devil’s Bridge. The title for the day indicated the aims of the event: “More than just a blue line on a map: creative approaches to create river engagement on the Afon Rheidol”.
This outdoor river event coincided with World Ocean Day 2024 (https://worldoceanday.org), which provided appropriate broader context for the Joy Welch project objectives of trying to engage people with rivers as a way of improving environmental stewardship. How we treat – or mistreat – rivers such as the Rheidol ultimately makes a major contribution to ocean health. Like many other rivers in west Wales, the Rheidol has a legacy of sediment and water contamination resulting from Victorian-era lead and zinc mining (https://www.mindat.org/loc-5248.html). In addition, flow and sediment transport is regulated as part of the Rheidol hydroelectric power scheme (https://www.statkraft.co.uk/about-statkraft-uk/where-we-operate/Locations/rheidol-hydropower-plant/), operational since the early 1960s but this year celebrating the 60th anniversary of its official opening. While the impacts of mining activity on the Rheidol’s channel and floodplain have been the subject of many scientific and applied studies over the years (https://naturalresources.wales/media/679799/cwm-rheidol-mine-case-study_2016_06.pdf), the impacts of the scheme’s dams and reservoirs have not been subject to the same level of critical scrutiny. The scheme is one of the largest of its kind in Wales and England and can be credited for generating enough hydroelectricity each year to power the equivalent of 40 000 homes with ‘clean’ electricity, as well as incorporating various environmental sustainability design elements, including special ‘fish lifts’ that aim to facilitate the upstream passage of salmon and trout past the dams to their old spawning grounds. As part of the 60th anniversary, an appeal has been made for memories from people who worked on the construction of the scheme or at the power plant or who remember the scheme being built, or who can share recollections from older family members (https://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/news/appeals-for-memories-of-power-station-as-rheidol-site-celebrates-60-years-669780). While this ‘human experience’ angle is understandable and important, just like in the Elan valley (https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2023/10/21/giving-voices-to-rivers-the-role-of-art-science-collaborations-part-3/), there seems to be a distinct lack of space or appetite for a more rounded, critical reflection on the impacts of the dams, reservoirs and flow regulation on geoheritage, river geomorphology, and ecology, including the success (or otherwise) of the ‘fish lifts’.
But the focus of the open public event was not really on these broader issues. As suggested by the event’s title, rather the focus was on exploring different creative approaches for engaging people with rivers, particularly as a way of ‘giving voices’ to some of the invisible, overlooked, or underappreciated riverscape features. With twenty people in attendance over the day, an age range from two to two-plus-multiple-decades, and a mix of academics and non-academics, it was never going to be easy to keep everyone entertained. Over the five hour session, however, various creative approaches were trialled with a good range of people engaging enthusiastically. For most of the day, I was definitely pushed well outside my normal comfort zone, but in a good way.
Dewi Roberts started the day with the ever-popular ‘river bug’ sampling exercise, which essentially involves the standard method of kick sampling: disturbing a small area of the riverbed with one’s foot, and catching in a net the lifeforms that are dislodged and gently drift downstream. At Cwmrheidol, the remains of mining activity on the riverscape are all too evident: adits, mine spoil and abandoned buildings on the hillsides, discoloured sediments on the river bank, dilapidated stone buildings adjacent to some of the bedrock channels, and rusting ironwork. Vegetation is returning to the poisoned hillsides, and superficially at least, the river bed sediments look relatively clean. But what is occurring around and beneath the bed surface?
The kick sampling exercise provides an insight into the benthic invertebrate ecology in particular. Based on the findings, we can give a cautious thumbs up: freshwater worms, water beetles, caddis fly larvae, and mayfly nymphs were among some of the recovered lifeforms. Other observations support the impression of a functioning food web: algae and black fly larvae on rocks, insects taking to the wing (especially as the sun finally broke through the initial cloud cover), and grey wagtails and other birds responding to the sudden insect buffet. This aspect of the river’s voice can at least be discerned.
As attention to the kick sampling waned, Julian Ruddock then led on an activity involving riverscape drawing. Paper strips roughly 120 cm long and 20 cm tall were folded concertina style, and people were encouraged to use each of the 5, 6, 7 or 8 panels to sketch quickly a different section of the riverscape with whatever caught their interest. Water soluble pastel crayons were the main medium, but there was encouragement to use other available materials, including those provided by nature, such as charcoal, chlorophyll from leaves, mud, sand, and gravel. Technical ability was not really the point of the exercise (although ability was clearly on display): rather, the idea was to focus attention on different aspects of the riverscape, and promote resourcefulness in looking for the materials that nature could provide. A comparison of the various outputs provided evidence of a fascinatingly varied range of personal interpretations of the riverscape.
The drawing exercise transitioned into Nuala Dunn’s ‘interview’ activity that helped us to think further about some of the varied riverscape voices. Working in pairs, people were asked to adopt the perspective of a riverscape feature – something geological, something geomorphological, something ecological, or something human made – and to answer a series of questions from that perspective. For example: What are you doing here? How long have you been here? Where are your future dreams? Do you have any family? Of course, the temptation is to lapse into an easy anthropomorphising of the riverscape features, but the exercise seemed to be very successful in getting everyone to imagine those other river voices and think from a non-human perspective about environmental flux and change. If the potholes, pebbles, or foxgloves at Cwmrheidol could speak, what tales could they tell us?
A lunch break followed, where wide ranging discussions provided audible confirmation of the benefits of getting people with different perspectives together in an outdoor river setting. From catching snippets of the conversations, it became clear that many plans for future art-science projects, educational initiatives, or recreational activities were being made.
In the early afternoon, Hywel Griffiths provided his introduction to haiku: a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world. To provide inspiration (if required), word strings from the glossary in our book on river potholes (https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2022/11/12/viewing-familiar-landscapes-through-fresh-eyes/) had been printed out and cut up. Three sets of word strings were drawn at random, and incorporated or adapted into the poem if possible. Some people found this straightforward; others preferred to adopt different poetic approaches. Whatever approach works …. again, the exercise was successful in focusing attention on the ‘voices’ expressed by river processes, forms and change.
Brian Swaddling rounded off the activities with an overview of his approach to producing ephemeral land art. Using natural materials such as pebbles or organic materials (grass, leaves, twigs and so on), eye-catching but short-lived artworks can be produced. This activity provoked contemplation of how we can use the materials that nature provides for artistic effect while having minimal lasting impact on the environment, and also invited greater consideration of material flux. Given the human footfall and future rain and floods at the Cwmrheidol site, how long lasting will be an arrangement of grasses and flowers in a pothole, or a snake-like arrangement of pebbles around a pothole?
So much was going on during the event that I barely got time to mess about with the flow velocimeter or with the photogrammetry software on my smartphone. But I grabbed some quick scans of the potholes anyway, which highlight rich potential for use in various scientific, education and creative contexts.
Overall, the event succeeded in tapping multiple senses through a blend of science and art approaches, use of natural and synthetic materials, and analogue and technology-assisted methods of data gathering and recording. Doing a formal evaluation of the activities with those present did not seem in keeping with the deliberately informal spirit of the day. But based on conversations and unprompted email feedback afterwards, the event was widely viewed as successful by all those attending. The best piece of feedback came from the mouth of one seven year old participant who clutched his sketch book for the best part of the day and happily told me that “I like this kind of art …. just using what you can find in nature”.
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Rather than relaxing after a full day, in the evening I decided to attend an art-science event at Aberystwyth Arts Centre: “When Earth Speaks: A Dirty Ensemble” by Miranda Whall and collaborators. This involved a 50 minute performance that blended lighting, sounds and butoh dance, all improvised in response to a live stream of environmental data (e.g. soil temperature and moisture) from the Cambrian Mountain uplands. As explained in the follow-up question and answer session, the inspiration for the performance was to achieve a blend of science, art and digital technology in order to interrogate what Miranda referred to as the ‘nature-data-human’ triad (for more information, see https://www.mirandawhall.space/when-earth-speaks/). This type of conceptual, performance-based, art-science activity constitutes a very different approach to the more explicitly public communication/educational approach adopted in our Joy Welch project, but in relation to upland soils nonetheless is addressing many of the same themes that the Joy Welch project is addressing in relation to rivers; i.e. making the invisible visible, giving voice to unnoticed, underappreciated or abused features, and so on. In many respects, the “When Earth Speaks” performance shares common ground with some of the various contributions to the earlier Elan valley ‘‘Watershed” event (see https://stephentooth.wordpress.com/2023/10/21/giving-voices-to-rivers-the-role-of-art-science-collaborations-part-3/).
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By reflecting on the various Joy Welch project activities and the numerous wider examples of art-science collaborations, it is abundantly clear that a multitude of approaches can help give voices, hear voices, express voices, and translate voices from the invisible, unseen or overlooked aspects of the natural world. Trials of these different approaches have demonstrated the very fertile creative ground, and provided many opportunities for learning how they can be best tailored to school, university, and wider public audiences, as well as to land managers and policy makers. But, collectively, can these efforts help (re-)engage people with rivers and other natural features, and so generate the critical mass necessary for a wider drive to improve environmental stewardship? As the lunchtime conversations at Cwmrheidol made clear, other planned activities in the coming months and years hopefully will allow the lessons learned to be taken forward, and enable this crucial question to be addressed.
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