On a spectacularly rainy Friday 13th February a second collaborative meeting was held at The Innovation Centre at Exeter University between the artist and PhD students who have chosen to work with the subject of Recent Flooding in the Somerset Levels. Deborah Westmancoat met with Olivia Cooke, James Webber and Dave Glover to share tea, research and ideas on how to best implement their proposal and visually communicate the results at the presentation planned for the middle of March 2015. Everyone had lots of suggestions to bring to the table and all agreed it ended up being a really productive morning.

The team have agreed to meet up at the beginning of March for a collective visit to a floodplain and spend a day making site responsive work using materials and elements found within the landscape. James is particularly drawn to understanding flood resiliance and the effect that has on local communities. Olivia has a strong interest in monitoring the spread of disease following flood events, and Dave’s future work is likely to focus on the use of computer modelling of coast and estuary environments using multiple algorithms. The team look forward to discovering the value of being physically part of the landscape they have been studying, and are interested in how that experience might impact on their understanding of their own particular fields of enquiry. The team is also interested in the value of play, and discussed how site responsive, ‘purposeless creativity’ could open possibilities for a deeper or more intuitive understanding of the nature and characteristics of the Somerset Levels and Moors and issues surrounding floodplain management.