It’s been quite a while since I’ve written one of these posts about a one-to-one walk and talk, two years in fact, the last one being with Artist Gemma Gore in December 2024. Others have featured collaborators such as Botanist Mark Spencer, writer Peter Reason, medical humanities researcher Catherine Lamont Robinson, and seasonal streams researcher/ecologist Tim Sykes.
Since I wrote that post about my and Gemma’s walk, Queer River has been showing up in other ways. I’ve developed plans for further Neuroqueer Ecologies research ( more to come on that soon hopefully), taken solo walks to experiment with new ways of documenting, carried out residencies in the New Forest and Norfolk, and taken my river-based practices out to work with different communities including in Salisbury through The Ripple Effect, and more recently in Kings Lynn with Groundwork Gallery and the Norfolk Rivers Trust (photos below).
I’m keen to continue and to develop these one-to-one walks and talks, as they feed me and connect me with others through dialogue with each other and local wetland communities. So I was pleased to be invited by Fiona MacDonald, working as Feral Practice, to visit her local river in Somerset, and to walk and talk together about Queer River. Our conversation was ecorded by Fiona as part of a new piece of work that she is developing through a bursary from Ginkgo Projects and Somerset Council, with the FCDI (Firepool Centre for Cultural Innovation):
‘Wellington-based artist Fiona MacDonald works with humans and nonhumans as Feral Practice to expand imaginative and cultural connection across species boundaries. Often people set up a divide between human and nonhuman beings, and between different categories of knowledge and understanding. Feral Practice works and converses across these barriers.’
I’ve been aware of (and felt a kinship to) the work of Feral Practice for many years (see here for some of her work with Wood Ants, and here with foxes) and we had been in touch online, but hadn’t actually face to face met until last year.
Our walk yesterday responded to the River Tone as we followed it westwards away from Taunton, past railway lines and main roads and along the edge of farmer’s fields, with debris left hanging in bushes and leaving tidelines on the ground from recent flooding. On our way Fiona asked me questions about a whole range of subjects relating to my practice with rivers, queerness, neurodivergence, flooding, my research with beavers, and the conversation flowed between us.
We crunched through ice, skirted around floods, rescued tiny fish fry stranded in a puddle, saw egrets and cormorants, listened to Teal, and shared our passions for learning from non-humans. We talked about indigeneity in animals and humans, tried to work out what had been eating the bark of fallen branches (Muntjac?) and noticed the similarities and differences between the land around Taunton, Fiona’s old home patch in Kent, and where I live in Wiltshire (both chalky)
I brought along various ways of recording our walk, just in case I needed them, but happily most of our time was spent engaged in conversation. One of my collecting pots was useful for rescuing the fish fry though, and I made good use of my time on the train down to make some notes on the place of bridges within my work. I also gathered a few of the pieces of plastic rubbish left on the riverbank, that piqued my interest and may well feed into some new artwork..
Our conversation, recorded as we walked, will now contribute to a sound artwork about the River Tone that Feral Practice is developing:
‘Tonal will (poetically and factually) explore the river, the lives of its creaturely inhabitants and visitors, how it connects to people locally and to ideas around rivers and water more broadly.’
Thank you to Fiona and the River Tone for making me feel so welcome (and for the photos of me in this post). You can read more about Feral Practice here: www.feralpractice.com.
Queer River 
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