“THIS PROJECT HAS HELPED ME REALISE THAT YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE SCIENCE AS WELL AS BEING A GOOD SCIENTIST” (Olivia Cooke)

On 2nd March 2015 Deborah Westmancoat took the two of the students working with recent flooding to the Willows and Wetland Centre in Stoke St Gregory. The aim was to learn more about how this particular area was affected and to make some site responsive artworks using materials collected from the area. Despite the chilly winds, Olivia Cooke and Dave Glover threw themselves into the project with great energy and interest, starting with a useful conversation with Nicola, one of the staff at the Centre, about how the floods were perceived locally and how the surrounding land had been affected. They also discussed ways of potential land management, including the planting of Willow. The Centre kindly donated some materials for the students to use in our artworks. We found out that art keeps the Centre going – artists charcoal made from their Willow beds being their most significant export!

The centre kindly allowed us the use of an outdoor classroom overlooking The Levels for the day. As soon as we had moved our kit onto site we started collecting materials from the ground, withy sticks and water from the River Tone to use in the works. Nobody fell into the river…but it was a close call at one point! After some initial discussion and trials our art started to take shape. Following on from ideas initially presented by fellow student, James Webber, we manipulated our gathered materials on the paper sheets we were working on to represent various flooding scenarios. We added writing ink to the collected waters, and this was rained or tidally flooded into the various topographic elements to ‘write’ the story of how water reacts in different situations. We all agreed that the finished pieces are very striking, and were interested to see just how well the ink/water images represented the different hydrological scenarios so well.

The making of the work led to some interesting observations and discussion between the group. Olivia Cooke felt that the project made clear to her that “…you have to be able to communicate science as well as being a good scientist”.

Dave Glover said that seeing the works made helped to reinforce that “…you can’t apply the same solution to the same problem in every area. You need careful land management in the Somerset Levels.”

Later, reflecting on our day of making flood art in the landscape, Dave wrote:

“It was great to get out from behind the computer screen and to actively model some ‘flood scenarios’. Some of these ‘flood scenarios’ were interesting to compare; the chromatography showed where the water ‘pooled’. If you have ever watched how water runs down a window; you will have seen how droplets will merge or follow similar paths. This was something that was visible today in the artwork which you would not necessarily see that detail in a computer model. One important aspect to note is the speed at which these observations take place; in a river channel erosion may take place over days or even months. However the process of creating these models allowed us to appreciate these processes in minutes. It was a very useful teaching tool which is a fair reflection of the purpose of the project; to communicate science visually. After talking to Nicola (one of the staff members at the Centre) it left me with the impression that there will not be a concurrent solution, such as dredging. She stated that although the last years flood actually damaged very little Willow, it did prevent its harvesting which was a problem specific to themselves. Obviously this links back into the discussion of better land use management. Do we flood a small town or do we flood an area of willow and compensate the owners?”

During our last meeting, which took place in Exeter last week, we looked into one of the two projects we are developing more in detail responding to the the Future of flooding in the Somerset Levels and Moors.

The ideas started from thoughts around, how do we communicate to the future? how do we communicate to the present to shape the future? Dealing with the unknown future, specially connected to climate is a difficult approach to deal with, therefore we decided to look for ways to engage with the public in a more genuine way by transforming our research into a final piece including all those thoughts adding some sense of humour.

Having discussed within our group about possible ways to connect with people, we realised that with this specific project we aim at generating a discussion from having something simple in your hands you can touch, you can explore, you can assemble by yourself, you can use, you can play with: something that allows you to be actively involved as opposed to standing still in front of something.

We also discussed about materials: we will use materials that are either natural or recycled as much as possible, to source them from Somerset as much as we can, to set a stronger connection with the area, its landscape and its history.

The process of thinking about both techniques to realise our idea and materials to use is challenging, as some techniques are new to us and we haven’t been working with some of the materials we are looking at before. The whole process requires research and experimentation and it’s fun exploring new methods together and learning by doing.

It is interesting to see how this challenge is making us more creative. The group conversations we have are very imaginative and interesting, especially considering the broad scope we have by being four participants but all coming from different countries.

The next step will be collecting the items we need, and assemble everything to make our idea come true!

This group formed with the artist Seila Fernandez Arconada and the PHD students Barney Dobson, Ioanna Stamataki and Ludovica Beltrame.

Somerset Levels in the journey to Exeter.

At our first meeting in December I was very pleased to meet with the other members of my group. I have to admit to feeling extremely excited by the group’s ideas surrounding the Societal Response to the Floods, as this fits in so well with the research I did for my project on the Somerset Levels and Moors. (https://sawcreativepathways.wordpress.com/category/andrea-oke/) However, I was also a little intimidated by the amount of knowledge contained within one room!

An excellent starting point for our project was provided by Josie Ashe, who had completed a drawing of the of the area, which we felt was a very accessible starting point for getting the public to engage with our project. This initial focus combined with the work that group had already completed, prior to meeting me, led us to formulate a strategy for the exhibition. We intend to draw together a number of themes running throughout the Land of the Summer People project which aim to provide a space which informs and encourages dialog on the connectivity of the landscape (social and hydrological), drivers for change, and our response to recent and historic flooding.

I will be utilizing some of my interviews from those effected by the flooding as a way of provoking a response from our audience and have included a sample which can be heard here (https://soundcloud.com/memoryarchive/flooding-on-the-moors)

In terms of putting this project into practice, I feel there may be challenges regarding our differing approach to the subject. My working process is always quite fluid, in short there can be no way of predicting what the people I interview will want to talk about or what my research will uncover. I always try to keep an open mind and never form a final idea of my ‘finished piece’ until the research period is finished, I welcome change and find that my best work comes out of uncertainty. However, I cannot imagine that this is a strategy adopted my many engineers, and I am imagining theirs will be a far more logical process.

So what am I getting from this collaboration? I have asked my group to join me in Moorland where we can experience first hand the social effects of the floods. I feel very comfortable in this environment. I am more than familiar with the people I interview and the places they live. I know their feelings regarding the dredging and the flood defences but I wonder whether these interviews may have left me with a slightly biased view? Furthermore, perhaps I exercise more control over my work than I would care to admit. It has occurred to me that I respond to people’s feelings and thoughts without any need for fact or scientific verification; I have no need to be factual. Therefore I need to commit to the collaborative process by engaging with the ‘science’ surrounding our topic and allow the rest of my group to educate me, a challenge which will push the boundaries of my processes but it is what influence I may have over their methodology which I feel may be our biggest challenge.

Andrea Oke

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.

During this workshop, artists and students got together for the first time. This meeting took place in Exeter University during December 2014.

Firstly, artists introduced themselves with a presentation of their practice, with a particular emphasis   in process and how creative methods where shaping the final artwork. This gave the students the opportunity to understand more in depth about the research their art practices carry from their personal experiences.

Afterwards, students presented their ideas of possible projects coming from their research about the Somerset Levels and Moors. This project has an experimental dimension as we didn’t know what was going to come out from their first responses, however, we found the result even at this stage was very successful. The projects presented were very varied, both in terms of conceptual approaches but also techniques that included interactive installations and interventions in the public space, among others.

After a break we were all ready to work in groups. The dynamic of their group relied on each of the participants in order to find a common interest to tackle in their collaborative projects. They had sources to work from, their research in Somerset, the student groups ideas and the artists’s approaches.

The groups were deep into their conversations sharing ideas, putting them together and shaping them in collaboration. After that they already had an starting point of what they wanted to work on during this project. Ideas will be shaped over the process, however, their essence will be carried on until the final stage of the project when presented to the public.

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To see more images click in the slideshow below.

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The artists for this project were carefully curated to match each of the groups working about the Somerset Levels and Moors. Being both professional artists and Somerset community members, artists were invited to get together in Taunton in early December.

Jon England, Deborah Westmancoat, Simon Ledson and Andrea Oke, together with Seila Fernández Arconada will be working together with each of the groups. Very briefly, I explain their connections with the theme of flooding as well as their particular selected periods of time.

Jon England is allocated with the “Overview of the long term flood history of the Somerset Levels and Moors” for his interest into history and the importance of archives in his process, how they inform concepts and materiality of his works with special look at Somerset history. For more information about his practice click here.

Deborah Westmancoat will be working with “Recent flooding in Somerset Levels and Moors (2013-14) as her practice looks specifically at site-specific waters, often flood, which she uses as material in her last body of work. For more information about her practice click here.

Simon Ledson will be working with “Historical flooding in Somerset (last 100 years). Ledson has worked with representations of data in which his interest in water is an important part of his body of work in the last years, including representations of Somerset flooding. For more information about Simon Ledson’s practice click here.

Andrea Oke is in the group ” Societal response to flooding in Somerset”, her last project “Levels” had an interest into how people were affected by the flooding in Somerset, looking at storytelling Oke transformed those local memories into sounds and drawings. For more information about her practice click here.

Seila Fernández Arconada will work with “The future of the flooding in Somerset Levels and Moors”. Her current practice, including this project, looks at water with a particular perspective into the uncertain future caused by climate change. For more information about her practice click here.

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Wing Commander R.C. Hancock, (2006) by Jon England.

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Surface 3 (2013) by Deborah Wesmancoat.

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Spirit of the Levels, (2014) by Simon Ledson.

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Levels (2014) by Andrea Oke.

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Unconscious Power, the act of collective creativity (2014) by Seila Fernández Arconada

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In the first workshop, WISE engineering students from the Universities of Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Cardiff got together to explore the topic of flooding from different angles in the University of Exeter. The titles of their approaches were the following: “Recent flooding in the Somerset Levels and Moors (2013-14)”, “Societal response to flooding in Somerset”, “The future of flooding in Somerset”, “Historical flooding in Somerset (last 100 years)” and “Overview of the long term flood history of the Somerset Levels”.

Each of the groups presented their particular research to the rest by explaining their posters which led to a discussion. They had the theme of flooding in the Somerset Levels and Moors from different periods of time, however, similarities over time and reflexions over the whole took place.

After presenting their views on these topics from an engineering perspective, the students were introduced to art projects looking at similar topics with a particular focus on projects with a socially engaged dimension. Firstly, the artist Seila Fernández Arconada introduced her practice with special emphasis on the creative process and how different media could carry similar approaches in her practice. Coming from a multimedia background, the artist, has evolve along the years to collaborative and participatory approaches focusing on environment and climate change. Her presentation was connected to the broader contemporary art in which projects by artists such as Francis Alÿs, Eve Mosher, Pedro Reyes, Olafur Eliasson and Alessandro Rolandi, among others, were explained.

In addition, students were involved in some creative activities for them to look at storytelling and visual representation differently. With that purpose they were asked to bring an object to tell a story about their interest in water and share the story with their groups. This showed how by looking at defining a personal relationship with that object we can generate more engaging stories to connect with the “audience”. In addition, a collaborative drawing activity was connected to this and by choosing one of the objects each of the groups draw the different dimensions of the objects by following instructions from the artist. Those simple creative activities were an introduction for them to engage with communication and collaborative process.

The last part of the session focused on questions such as: what do you think are the differences between art and engineering? What is an engineer? What does creativity mean in your field of study? What do you mean when you use the term community? Among other to look for cultural backgrounds, stereotypes and perceptions that could influence communication leading to a discussion that took us from the role of engineers and how is perceived by society to community and how this term could be problematic. 

After being part in the workshop that helped them look at collaboration and art as a tool to express their research and ideas, they were given the task to generate a proposal in groups to tackle their particular research about Somerset Levels and Moors, but this time, incorporating artistic approaches.

Posters made by the students

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I like hydrology, the science of how water moves through our environment, and I like cycling. Cycling through Somerset to explore the region and to see its unique landscape that makes it so prone to flooding was therefore a very fitting start for our project. We spend a day cycling from Taunton to the uplands and back down along the river Parret. We experienced the flat Levels and Moors, and how the landscape rises in the upper parts of the catchment. It is easy to see how water will collect in the uplands and come down through a river whose edges are higher than the surrounding landscape. Nothing protects houses from flooding outside the towns ones the river reaches bankful discharge.

 

 

One of the most startling images was seeing a large number of houses in different states of repair after they had been flooded. Being located just meters next to the river Parret and unprotected means that they flooded as soon as the river overflowed. Small differences in topography made the difference between getting flooded and staying dry. I can imagine how worrying it must be to see the river levels rise to the edge, just meters away from your house. How does this environment define people’s relationship with water?

 

 

Thorsten Wagener

Five years of interest in the Somerset Levels and Moors and over a year of ideas and conversations about how to make the project happening is the background of The Land of the Summer People project.

During this time, I have been looking at the Levels and Moors from different perspectives researching around the historical archives including art, archaeology, geology, biology, hydrology, trying to empathy with the complex relationship of people, land and water in this area. While my interest in Somerset was growing, the last severe winter flooding occurred, which enforced even more what at that time was the conceptual base for this project.

Then I started visiting more Somerset to be present in the conversations happening out there as well as experiencing the landscape which meanwhile ended up being transformed in an art project called some:when. This project is a public art project in collaboration with the artist Jethro Brice together with individuals and community groups affected by the floods which is currently happening.

It is important for me how The Land of the Summer People project ideas have been shifted by the learning about the area, how experience have shaped what is vital in the research of this project, specially even more considering this project as an art-science collaborative approach. Since the last winter flooding in 2014, actions have been taking place, making even more relevant the exchange of knowledge, specially looking at the relationship between archival history and living memory, are decisions in the area influenced by (living) memory? Would it be important to look at history in order to learn from previous local inhabitants and combine their methods with the way we live nowadays? Would it be important to change approaches in local people’s lives to be more resilience about future extreme weather events? Could art play a role in the discourse, thinking of art as a language that enables reflection and analysis?

Seila Fernández Arconada