Creative Archive Workshop Series: Rivers, Industrial Heritage, Regeneration
‘So from the river we acquire an idea of human community. That is one of its most salutary features, so deeply imbued that we scarcely notice it.’ (Ackroyd, 2007: 11)
Ackroyd P (2007) Thames: Sacred River. London: Vintage.
Fiona Brehony invites us to explore relationships to waterways using creative writing and re-sounding exercises using visual, audio and text-based archive materials. The force and vibrancy of a river (as physical river and time-capsule containing heritage) is a great opportunity to use embodied approaches to understand the scale of a river. We will playfully engage in possibilities of being and being with the river; connecting personal objects used to serve tangible daily experiences, with seemingly intangible objects such as a river.
Fiona is incorporating archive materials into her own research to explore ecological and socio-material histories of the River Irk in Manchester, UK. She is working both independently with materials to create audio and visual representations and engaging local people in creative workshops with archive materials. Fiona is interested in exploring Cultural Memory of places, which refers to the collective practices that societies use to build and uphold their relationship to the past and present.
This workshop series is an opportunity to playfully consider our personal relationships to waterways, what we can learn from the ‘liquid history’ they contain, and the ways they connect us to places and people.
Bio:
Fiona is a Manchester based research-practitioner, working within spaces between Geography, documentary film, sound art and performance.
Since October 2023, Fiona has been working on a PhD research project that engages in possibilities of rivers as Cultural Heritage, with a particular focus on river engagement in areas of regeneration.
Fiona’s art practice explores the relationship between history, memory and visual and written narrative. She employs a research-based approach, working across a range of media. Previous artworks have utilised specialist expertise, involving collaboration with scientists and composers, to create lyrical and inquisitive connections between people and their environment. Fiona’s work takes the form of creative documentary and audio-visual installations that are exhibited in galleries and museums.
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