Queer River

Roadcombing

I posted an image on instagram recently of my son standing on the central reservation of the M6, with the words ‘This is a place too’, and commented on how motorways can feel like non-places, but when we get a rare chance to stop we can experience them more fully.

I mentioned in the post how I’m intrigued by the idea of having miniature residences on roundabouts. There’s something about the little green islands (not so much the tarmac ones) that people whizz past in their sealed car bubbles that is calling out to be noticed and explored.

I’ve always had a thing for islands, and other small, defined spaces where I can be alone with non-human company, and in some ways roundabouts (the wooded ones especially) have a similar feel. I have camped on Great Blasket Island off the west coast of Ireland by myself in the past, in the days when all the buildings were ruined and empty, and I had it all to myself, apart from the Grey Seals of the beach, the seabirds and pods of distant dolphins.

And on Whitsunday Island in Australia too, where goannas clawed at my tent and I could watch Green Turtles from my sleeping bag, and when daytrppers left, it was just me and the other animals alone on the beach. I appreciate that the car noise, fumes and threats of being run over on a roundabout wouldn’t be quite as relaxing, but I’m still tempted.

I’ve been thinking about how recent experiences relate to my Neuroqueer Ecologies research, which I decided to host here on the Queer River site, extending Queer Ecologies research to include the Neuroqueer too.

I’m starting to consider the ways that neurodivergent people perceive/experience our environment, what we notice and how we experience it.

So, bringing all this together, today I thought I’d take a walk along the road from my house and focus on the road itself. Rather than just using it as a way to reach the woods or river, to actually notice the road surface, and the objects and patterns that it has accumulated, and share my discoveries here. It’s a narrow road with no pavements, but a quiet one that connects together villages in the Pewsey Vale in Wiltshire.

The walk made me think of the times when I walked with my Urban Rural Exchange collaborator Karen Wood, around her local patch of East London, and her well established practice of noticing, recording and responding to road markings, street furniture, skips etc.

I was going to call this post Roadwalks, a bit like Roadworks I guess, with scope for wordplay as well as collecting and photo taking. But as I walked, I noticed the objects fallen or thrown from cars and pushed to the edge by wheels, and the clusters of plant material washed down the gutter and gathered together by the recent rain, and it felt like walking along a tideline, combing the eroded tarmac for treasures.

On the subject of islands and collecting, I read a wonderful book recently that I’d recommend, Sea Bean by Sally Huband, based in Shetland. I’m now also reading The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, on her experience of growing up on the Orkney Islands and returning as an adult recovering from alcoholism.

Following the Path of the Byde Mill Brook

Today I walked out from The Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, Wiltshire, to follow the path of the Byde Mill Brook through the town. I’m leading a Creative River Walk with The Pound on Wednesday 9th August (follow the link to book, if you fancy joining me), so this was a chance for me to research the route, develop a new piece of artwork for my Drawing on Water Exhibition, and learn more about this tributary of the Bristol Avon.

I took some new fold-out Walking Pages (I’ll be providing something similar for the participants of the August River Walk), and did my best to follow the Brook as it flows through the southern part of Corsham, both above and below ground.

The Byde Mill Brook at Corsham has been heavily modified, running through culverts in two places, under roads and houses (with no light to enable plant growth that in turn provides food and a home for other wildlife). Between culverts, the Brook passes through residential areas and is lined with lush cow parsley, docks and grasses. After the second culvert the Brook eventually emerges near the railway line, leaving the town via a long, artificially straightened channel.

Researching online, I found that chemical pollution levels between Corsham and where it meets the Avon at Lacock appear to be pretty bad, with water conditions made worse by sewage overflows at local treatment works.

According to the Top of the Poops website, the Byde Mill Brook at Corsham was polluted by Wessex Water 46 times in 2022 through the release of sewage, lasting a total of 565 hours. That’s the equivalent of 23 1/2 days solid of sewage pumping into this little river.

Walking Pages in Progress, and Wild Garlic

Please don’t let me put you off joining us for the walk! There’s some beautiful spots, and without reading up beforehand you’d probably never realise the challenges that the Brook and many others of our streams/rivers face.

I just think it’s really important that as well as enjoying our rivers, and the associated green spaces, we understand the ways that we negatively impact on their health. By doing so, we can start to think about how we can improve both water quality and wildlife habitats. That’s something we will discuss as we walk together in August.

I took a longer walk than we will as a group, as I wanted to get a feel for the whole of the Brook as it passes through the town, so had less time to stop, listen, notice and record than we will in August, when we can pause for longer and include more detail on our pages. Today I concentrated on making notes and layering printed photos with rubbings and printing

Through my Queer River work, and the Drawing on Water exhibition, I hope to communicate the value of taking time to be with rivers; slowing down to notice the communities of life that they support, as well as the damage that we have done. Perhaps that way, we can be inspired by their beauty and start working together to take positive action.

The image featured at the top of the post (also added below) was taken from a 2022 Environment Agency report into flood risks associated with Byde Mill Brook, and shows in red one of the culverted sections of the Brook.

Collecting to Connect

On Twitter recently Kate Smith (@KateEYT) posted a photo of some collections that she had helped her son, who is autistic, put together. I was touched by the way that she valued and supported his way of experiencing the world, and it reminded me of my own childhood collections, and the way that collecting developed into an important part of my practice as an artist. It got me thinking about collecting as an artist, and as an autistic person, and seems an interesting thread to pursue as part of my Neuroqueer Ecologies research.

So why do I collect? In the past I’ve shared images of collections that I’ve made, and had people comment that I might be encouraging others to cause damage to ecosystems, for example by gathering a few shells from the beach. I can understand why protected landscapes such as nature reserves ask people not to take pebbles or plant cuttings away with them, and the positive intention of the often used phrase ‘Take ony memories, leave only footprints’, to encourage people to leave a place as they found it. I am also aware that different people learn in different ways, and need different kinds of sensory experiences.

At the same time I know that my collecting serves an important purpose for me, and Kate’s son. I’m glad that the collecting of bird eggs is illegal, and that the Victorian practice of killing every rare bird in sight to stuff and put it in a museum is largely over. And I think we need to distinguish between a kind of collecting that strips a place of rare plants or birds eggs, and the gathering of a few small elements to draw or to learn, that can support our understanding of and connection with it.

Urban Rural Exchange – a walk from Canary Wharf

If I’m working with a group, I’m very clear that we don’t pick anything that’s growing, unless for example there’s a load of it and we can gather one or two flowers without negatively impacting on an ecosystem. Similarly if I collect shells on a beach, I’m making sure that there’s nothing alive inside them, and that I’m taking a few select objects rather than a big bag full.

For me, collecting gives me a chance to look more closely, to take an object away so that I can spend more time with it. At home I can look at its details, feel its textures, and then share it with others. Small scale collecting documents an experience and keeps it with me in a lasting way, giving me more time with that place through the pieces that I’ve gathered together. My collections often end up travelling around with me, to my Noticing Nature sessions with older people for example, who may not be able to get out and about as easily, and who often won’t have handled a buzzard feather or a deer skull.

It’s often said that autistic people are limited in their attention, that we get ‘stuck’ on a subject or a way of engaging with the world. Dinah Murray came up with the idea of Monotropism to describe the singular attention that autistic people can apply to a subject. As with everything about autistic people, this is generally seen as a lack, a disordered inability to spread attention over a wider arrange of things.

I see my fascination with the natural world, and the time that I spend exploring its details as an incredible gift. I wouldn’t be me without it, and think that the world needs more of us to stop and focus on the details as well as the bigger picture. Especially when that bigger picture often seems based on an outdated idea from the past rather than an observed reality of where we are right now.

When I make Walking Bundles, Walking Pages, or document a walk using a jar, a bag, some photographs or drawings, I gather together the physical elements of a place, at the same time as I gather together and process sensory information. The artwork evolves in my hand and my awareness of the make-up of my environment evolves within me.

It’s no wonder that I have spent years working with museums and heritage organisations, galleries and environmental charities, using collections to help people learn about where they live and work, and the details that often go unnoticed.

Work in progress at Andover Museum – Residency with CAS Andover

So the research question that I’m holding lightly as I do this work now is, what if we valued what neurodivergent perspectives can offer the rest of the world (especially in relationship to ecology and the earth crisis)? What if we recognised for instance that the majority of people are so caught up in the busyness of moden life that they can miss the important details, the insects that are dsappearing from around us, vital to the ecosystems on which we all depend, the everyday beauty of the world that can lift our spirits, and help us to carry on in difficult times?

Collecting helps me to learn that the world is a network of interlinked parts. It keeps me feeling connected and grounded. I don’t miss the bigger picture, I just don’t make assumptions about it, but prefer to construct that bigger picture from the details that I discover.

Thank you to Leigh Chalmers, Heritage Inclusion Manager from Wessex Archaeology, for sharing Kate’s tweet with me and sparking all sorts of thoughts/ideas.

Drawing on Water Exhibition – July/August 2023 at Pound Arts Centre, Wiltshire

James Aldridge - Art, Ecology and Learning

A bit of advanced notice that from 20th July to 26th August, my solo exhibition, Drawing on Water will be available to visit at The Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, Wiltshire.

The Exhibition

The exhibition will bring together work that I’ve been making as a result of the Queer River project, in particular pieces that draw on embodied ways of knowing my two local rivers, the Wiltshire Avons.

Please see the information below the poster for associated events.

‘This exhibition brings together work in a variety of media, created by James through his Queer River research project (visitwww.queerriver.com). Drawings, photographs and films reflect on the process of coming to know rivers and other wetlands, through collaborative, creative and embodied practices, to understand what they need from us, and what we can gain in return.‘

Associated Events

The exhibition preview of Drawing on Water will take…

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Swan People

I decided to call this post Swan Folk, after researching the relationship of people and swans in art and folklore of various kinds. Then I realised there’s already a book called Swanfolk which I think I’m going to have to read (and which I’m pretty sure someone on Twitter recommended to me a while back). So, here’s Swan People, with a taste of what I’ve been learning about and making in the last month or so.

Screenshot from short film (work in progress)

One of the reasons I’ve been researching swans is that I’ve been making a short film for my upcoming exhibition at Pound Arts in Corsham this Summer, which combines imagery of chalk, water, my own body and swans as a response to my experience of my local chalkstream, the River Avon.

My exhibition Drawing on Water will run from 20th July to 26th August and consist of video, photographs, drawings and objects that have emerged out of my Queer River Research. Not so much actual documentation of walks, although there will be an element of that, but artwork that I’ve made afterwards as I reflect on my experiences.

Screenshot from a short film (work in progress)

Why have I become so interested in swans? I’ve always felt a connection with water birds, and felt the power of birds that are all white or all black too. White swans, black corvids, tall almost human-like cranes and storks, walking through rushy swamps and wild places, stalking the edges and the boundaries. When I was a child and my Dad lived in Gloucestershire, I’d nag him to take us to Slimbridge, to watch wild birds from hides and gather pink feathers from the captive flocks of flamingos, whilst on holiday I’d be on the lookout for ducks or geese to feed.

Feeding the ducks at a campsite in Devon – c 1980

When I was young I also saw a film about a boy who made friends with a pelican (Storm Boy, 1976 – I’ve not watched the 2019 remake yet), and a documentary about a Chinese man who reared orphaned Siberian Cranes and danced with them. I’ve always been drawn to stories where the line between the human and the bird blurs (or mammal in the case of Grizzly Adams, another childhood favourite).

Some of my favourite childhood photos are of me with animals that I’ve befriended (I reared orphaned pigeons, cared for various injured birds, and kept caterpillars and stick insects alongside what was effectively my own natural history museum).

So for this new film I’ve been spending time with the Mute Swans that live on the Avon, experimenting with filming them underwater, and layering footage of them with the whiteness of local chalk, and their bodies with my body.

Bjork laying an egg at the Oscars (www.foreignpolicyyi.org)

Thank you to everyone who rsponded to my request for examples of swan people. My research has unearthed photos of ballerina Anna Pavlova with her pet swan Jack, Bjork in her swan dress laying eggs on the Oscars red carpet, and stories of various (mainly female) shape shifting (therianthropic) swan people. These include the Brothers Grimm tale The 6 Swans, Irish fable The Children of Lir, the classical stories of Leda and the Swan and Cyncus (son of Poseidon who turned into a swan after death and was sometimes said to have ‘womanly’ white hair and skin), Old Norse poem Volundarkvida and some queer retellings of older stories.

My film(s) for the Drawing on the Water exhibition (#DrawingOnWater2023) are very much works in progress, and I’d encourage you to get the dates in your diary and come along in the Summer if you can, but for now here’s a clip of some of my underwater footage, along with the couple of screenshots that I’ve included in the post above.

Where the Avon Meets the Sea

Last week I drove down to Christchurch with my friend and colleague Leigh Chalmers from Wessex Archaeology, with whom I’ve been working on the Ripple Effect project in Salisbury. I’ve been planning on going and seeing where my river (the Salisbury or Hampshire Avon) meets the sea for ages, both to inform my Queer River work, and to start planning a visit for the Ripple Effect group later this year.

Leigh near the point where the Avon and Stour meet

We spent some time by the rivers in Christchurch itself (where the Avon joins the Stour), visiting the Redhouse Museum near the harbour and filming some of the Mute Swans, and then moved on to Hengistbury Head and the visitor centre there, walking up to look around us and take in the bigger picture of the two rivers becoming one, flowing out past a spit of land and into the English Channel.

From Hengistbury Head we could see back down the estuary to Christchurch, across to The Needles on the Isle of Wight to the south east, and westwards along the coast to Bournemouth and Poole.

On a recent visit to the New Forest Heritage Centre Archive with the PaC (Practicing Artists Commoning) Artists’ Group, I’d spent some time looking at old maps of the local rivers and their relationship with the sea. One map that grabbed my attention was a sketch of how the rivers Avon, Stour and Solent might have looked back when the Isle of Wight was still a part of the mainland.

My time with Wessex Archaeology has helped inform my understanding of the processes that have shaped the River Avon over millions of years; its relationship with local people, the land and the sea. Research with PaC has helped fill in the gaps in my knowledge as the Avon moves down through Hampshire along the Western edge of the New Forest. My research into chalkstreams as part of Living by the Ash Tree Waters has sparked a fascination with the way that chalk, flint and other rocks were formed, and the interplay between geology and river systems.

The Heritage Centre helped provide us with so many different threads that we could take up and share with the Ripple Effect group, from the trade routes that linked the Iron Age port at Hengistbury with the Mediterranean, to the migratory bird and butterfly species that visit the area each year, the plants used in glass-making along with local sand, and the ironstones that led to quarrying in Victorian times and threatened the foundations of the Head.

I sometimes get a little self conscious about Queer River. I wonder if through working on a succession of river focused projects I’ll start to be seen as a bit of a one trick pony, but the subject of rivers is so vast, even when following the story of just one river, and the possibiities for journeys through place and time so rich, that I keep on exploring and learning.

On our walk around the Head, we stopped to play with small paper boats that I had made as part of the Well City Salisbury Earthworks 2 project, turning slowly in the breeze on dark woodland pools. Whilst at the beach I gathered a few finds (stone, metal and plastic) to add to a new boat that I’ve been building at home, woven from plants that grow in my garden (itself only half a mile or so from the beginnngs of the Avon).

I’ll be having an exhibition this Summer at Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, Wiltshire, drawing on my work with rivers, which will combine artwork made to document my Queer River journeys, with drawings and films made since, and other new pieces made specifically for the exhibition. I imagine that my woven boat and others like it wil be included in some way. I’ll add more details here as they’re confirmed.

Breathing in the Mist: Recent River Drawings

The drawing in progress in the featured image is one I made to reflect on the misty day that Gemma Gore and I experienced on our walk at Blashford Lakes, where the air was filled with fine water droplets, reflecting the light and filling the space above the water.

Breathing in the Mist (drawing in progress)

I’ve included some other recent drawings here too. One draws on the connections between my family (me, my husband and our son), the second continues to look at watery human-animal hybrids by combining eel and human bodies (see Mermen, Otters and Bears), and a third looks ahead to an exhibition I’ll be having in the Summer, in which I plan to include some sculptural pieces.

As before (see earlier posts Chalkstream Drawings and Drawing on Water) these drawings use botanical inks that I made in 2022, from plants that grow near my local stretch of the Salisbury Avon.

Walking with… Artist Gemma Gore

Yesterday I met with Visual Artist Gemma Gore from Southampton. Gemma and I visited the Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve, managed by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, near Ringwood, south of Salisbury and on the edge of the New Forest. The lakes are a legacy of sand and gravel extraction, which continues nearby, and the River Avon runs alongside them.

Gemma and I are both members of PaC, a peer group for artists that meets once a month in the New Forest, so we’ve met and walked together before. I really wanted Gemma to be a part of Queer River so that we could explore the connections between our practices and watery places/bodies in more depth, including Gemma’s collaboration From Doggerland with Netherlands based artist Jo Willoughby, together with our thoughts on neurodivergent/autistic artists’ perspectives.

‘Gemma’s practice tunes into the body’s pluralistic, sensuous ways of knowing to question the osmotic / inter-dependent nature of connection between multi-scalar bodies. What are the configurations and poetics of care? Informed by the dichotomy of how it looks / how it feels, and the murkiness in between, Gemma considers the capacities for intimacies, asking how can we continue to live together within the context of crisis on earth? Grounded in positions of disability, motherhood, queer-ecology and radical vulnerability. Gemma’s work both emerges within and creates acts of unknowingness, gesturing towards remembering ancestors.’

https://gemmagore.site/about

I’ve written a little on here before about neurodivergence, and the relationship between Queer and Autistic perspectives – see Neuroqueer and Art, Ecology & Autism – but it’s something I want to explore more, and was really pleased to have the chance to start to discuss it with Gemma on our walk. I’m sure it’s something that she and I will return to again in the future.

Before we visited Blashford Lakes I did a little digging online in terms of the ecology and culture of the local area. I’m really interested in post-industrial sites, and in the impacts of extractivist practices on ecosystems. I’ve worked at other wildlife sites before which were previously quarries – for example a residency for Outdoor Culture about 12 years ago at College Lake near Tring – where chalk was previously dug to create cement for the M1 and Heathrow Airport. Whilst there I researched the history of the site, and the migratory bird species that visit, including swallows and hobbies, and made artwork for a bird hide in response.

One section of my ‘Journeys’ installation at College Lake, 2010

I’ve been thinking recently about deep time and rivers, through the Ripple Effect project I’ve been learning about how the River Avon might have been in Paleolithic times, and in my chalkstream research I’ve been reading up on chalk and flint formation. Put together with a fascination for flint tools and other archaeological finds, and an increasing interest in the geology of Wiltshire/Hampshire, a visit to a site with a history of flint gravel extraction by the side of the Avon was a perfect fit for the next Queer River walk.

Rather than try and capture the whole of my conversation with Gemma here, I’ve used a little description with some images and quotes to hint at our thinking. I have always found wetlands such a rich place to respond to, and felt very at home in the wet woodland, reed beds and pond edges of Blashford.

After parking my car in the car park we followed the gravel paths around the site, pausing at bird hides to eat chocolate hobnobs and share sources of inspiration, from talks by Astrida Neimanis, to the What is a River? illustrated book by Monika Vaicenavičiene. On our way we caught glimpses of a kingfisher through willow branches, looked at a blackboard list of recent bird sightings, and discussed the practicalities of living and working as an autistic artist.

Lastly we ended up in a large glass fronted hide which overlooks the biggest lake at Blashford, Ibsley Water. Inside we paused to write and draw with soil paint made by Gemma and some of my botanical inks, and then Gemma read from a piece of hers called A Cave (2011), from an earlier body of work focusing on underground/geology.

We could only see a little way across the lake because of the fog, and were joined by a few people who came and went in frustration, at not being able to spot birds through the white hazy water droplets. I enjoyed the thought that we were breathing in the water, and the effects that were created by the fog in terms of sound and vision, as Widgeon and Coots called out from the whiteness, and reflections rippled with the breeze.

So what has my time with Gemma given me? As I say, I’m not going to try and sum up all that we discussed in a neatly packaged conclusion, but it is helpful for me to write down some emerging thoughts.

I’m left thinking that my queerness and my neurodivergence can’t be separated, and they both provide me with opportunities to see and experience connections beyond human cultures and communities that I might not otherwise. I have a few new links and books to investigate (thanks Gemma) and after previously reading some of Astrida Neimanis’ work am now enjoying listening to some of her talks (thank you Astrida).

I enjoyed taking the inks, made with plants growing near my stretch of the Avon, down to meet their watery cousins further downstream, and watching Gemma using them to respond to the ripples on the water.

I find the media that Gemma uses, and the way she moves between them inspiring, and enjoyed sharing our fascinations for embodied experience, geological history and queer ecology. It’s also validating, as well as useful in a more practical way, to be able to talk about our needs as neurodivergent people, and how to ask for these to be met as self-employed artists.

And then there’s all the things that are half formed, felt and emerging, that will pop up when I’m next on a walk, or by some water, or reading something new. Things that can’t be forced, and are all the richer for allowing them to choose their own time to make themselves known.

Walking with rivers – with people, reeds, lakes and the fog – is about not being in control of what will show itself, what will offer itself up to be known, and that’s what I love about it most.

See here for a post from Gemma on our walk together.

For more information on/examples of art as a response to extractivist practices, see Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss

Taking a Spoon for a Walk

Today I took a wooden spoon for a walk, from my home in the Vale of Pewsey, down to the River Avon. The spoon had been used the day before in Salisbury, also by the River Avon, to make tea and coffee for Ripple Effect project participants, and I was keen that it should have a new life, forming the base of a new Walking Bundle.

In the Ripple Effect sessions with Wessex Archaeology, we’ve been talking about how the things that we use and then lose or throw away can become archaeological artefacts, and sometimes end up in museums, such as the Drainage Collection at Salisbury Museum (photos below), which we visited recently.

In my Queer River research I’m becoming increasingly interested in Geology and Prehistory, how the land has changed over time, and how this informs the way that we live with rivers.

Yesterday with the Ripple Effect group we met with two archaeologists from Wessex Archaeology, who talked about Paleolithic and Mesolithic archaeology, and how the Salisbury Avon might have been in the past. As part of the session we handled beautiful flint hand axes, which reminded me of my work at Stonehenge with English Heritage, and more recent research into the relationship between prehistoric sites (especially Neolithic) and rivers. We also talked about what we might learn from our ancestors, in order to live well with the river and be good ancestors ourselves.

So although my work on the Ripple Effect and Queer River, and my previous work on Living by the Ash Tree Waters (working with communities and chalkstreams in the Andover area) are all separate projects, they feed into and inform each other, and support my understanding of the relationship between rock (especially for me, chalk and flint), rivers and people.

Today’s walk with that coffee stained wooden spoon, was a chance for me to let all this sink in, and to revisit my own local stretch of the Avon, upstream from Salisbury, to walk, gather and bind together fragments of this riverscape with the recycled Salisbury spoon.

Next Friday I’m going to be taking my first Queer River walk, since September, when I walked along the Kennet and Avon Canal with Andy Marks. This time I’ll be walking and talking with Artist Gemma Gore, at a nature reserve that sits alongside the Avon, near Ringwood in Hampshire. Formed from flooded gravel pits, Blashford Lakes should offer us a chance to think some more about these themes, and the role of post-industrial wetland landscapes, as well as for me to learn more about the watery nature of Gemma’s own arts practice.

A post on my time with Gemma coming soon…

Water Body, River Body, Swimming, Sewage, Sea

Water Body
River Body
Swimming
Retching
Stinging
Sleeping
Water Body
River Body
Swimming
Sewage
Sea

This post and the drawings/photos in it reflect on my recent experience of digestive issues and hospital treatment, alongside increasing media coverage of the release of sewage into our rivers and seas, and my own river/sea swimming.

See this earlier post Water Bodies – Inside and Out for more artwork exploring bodily flows and river/human health, particularly focusing on kidneys.