Red River: Listening to a Polluted River

位于西康沃尔的红河被形容为英国最“不自然”或“改造”的河流。这条长达7.5英里的峡谷没有一处没有受到康沃尔锡矿工业的影响。虽然这条河只不过是一条小溪，但它在康沃尔的工业革命和世界各地硬岩采矿的发展中发挥了重要作用。这一重要性已被联合国教科文组织指定为世界遗产。它仍然是创新的源泉，需要开发新技术，以减少流入其河道的含重金属矿井水的污染。尽管有这些污染物，红河中仍有一种基因独特的褐鳟，它们已经进化到可以在有毒的环境中生存。这些鱼和康沃尔的发动机房一样，都是工业革命的产物。在一首诗中，它们可能与河流本身一起，作为我们与环境复杂互动的多维转喻。这种自然、工业和后工业历史的结合，使红河成为对人与自然相互关系进行生态诗意和批判性探索的丰富主题。该奖学金将测试创造性写作作为“实践即研究”的能力，通过结合批判性文本研究、实地考察、诗歌创作和社会参与研究实践，创造出揭示这种相互关系复杂性的已知知识。越来越多的人认识到，我们需要面对自己给环境造成的混乱。海滩清洁、环保活动、媒体活动和立法让人们注意到我们对塑料的依赖对世界海洋和河流的影响。通过与当地社区和合作伙伴的合作，该奖学金将提供诗歌作为个人和社区参与改变其环境所产生的社会意义的聚会场所。该项目将解决与红河相关的有形和无形的污染，以及对更广阔景观的有形和无形的感受；它将讲述欧盟资助的招牌的引人注目的历史，以及生活在受污染的河岸上的人们的无形和短暂的历史。与达特河和塞文河等更著名的河流一起，红河可能会成为一个典型的“影子地点”，通过它所体现的复杂的人与自然的互动，体现了野性、崇高和风景如画的理念。这项实践即研究调查的集水区将通过研究考古报告、SSSI声明、历史文献、河流文献、生态诗学、声学生态学、访问当地社区团体和学校、采访水生生态学和采矿领域的专家、实地考察和河流调查来绘制。它将借用“过渡带”的生态概念，或生物群落的聚集地，作为一种概念性工具，既可以解读红河的边缘环境，也可以通过近距离观察生态对象来隐喻文本的形成和改变。该奖学金将产生一本书长度的诗，一个声音装置，并通过实践作为研究产生的知识的学术文章。调查结果将在会议、文学活动、艺术画廊和遗产遗址上展示。该奖学金将在开发社会参与研究的新方法和开展跨学科艺术/科学合作方面发挥领导作用。这些发现将在特定学科的会议和网上分享。它将共同为学校制作教育材料，并策划一场“废物议会”活动，将当地民众、政治家、艺术家和专家聚集在一起，讨论污染和废物对健康和福祉的环境影响。

The Red River in West Cornwall has been described as the most 'unnatural' or 'modified' river in the UK. No part of its 7.5mile length has been untouched by the effects of the Cornish tin-mining industry. Although little more than a stream, the river has played an important role in the industrial revolution in Cornwall and the development of hard-rock mining around the world. This significance has been recognised by the designation of the area through which it flows as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It continues to be a source of innovation by necessitating the development of new techniques to reduce pollution from the heavy-metal laden mine water that feed into its course. Despite these contaminants, the Red River contains a genetically-unique population of brown trout that has evolved to survive its toxic environment. These fish are as much artefacts of the industrial revolution as Cornish engine-houses. In a poem they may operate, along with the river itself, as multi-dimensional metonyms for our complex interaction with the environment. This combination of natural, industrial and post-industrial history makes the Red River a rich subject for an eco-poetic and critical exploration of the human/nature interrelationship. The fellowship will test the ability of creative writing as 'practice-as-research' to create knew knowledge that reveals the complexity of this interrelationship through combining critical textual research, fieldwork, poetic composition and socially-engaged research practices.There is a growing understanding that we need to confront the mess we're making of our environment. Beach cleans, environmental activism, media campaigns and legislation have drawn attention to the impact our addiction to plastic has had on the world's oceans and rivers. Through working with local communities and partners the fellowship will offer poetry as a gathering place for the social meaning generated by individuals and communities involved in changing their environment. The project will address both visible and invisible pollution connected with the Red River, and visible and invisible feelings about the wider landscape; it will address the conspicuous history of EU-funded signboards, as well as the invisible and ephemeral histories of those who live along its contaminated banks. Set alongside more celebrated rivers like the Dart and the Severn, the Red River may come to operate as an exemplary 'shadow site' counterpointing, through the complex human/nature interaction it embodies, ideas of the wild, sublime and picturesque.The catchment area for this practice-as-research investigation will be mapped through research into archaeological reports, SSSI statements, historical documents, the literature of rivers, eco-poetics, acoustic ecology, visits to local community groups and schools, interviews with subject experts in aquatic ecology and mining, field-walking and river surveying. It will borrow the ecological concept of the 'ecotone', or meeting place of biomes, as a conceptual instrument for both reading the marginal environments of the Red River and as a metaphor for the way texts shape and are altered by close observation of ecological objects. The fellowship will result in a book length poem, a sound installation, and a scholarly article derived from the knowledge generated through practice-as-research. Findings will be presented at conferences, literary events, in art galleries and heritage sites. The fellowship will demonstrate leadership in developing new methodologies for socially-engaged research and conducting trans-disciplinary arts/science collaborations. These findings will be shared at discipline-specific conferences and online. It will co-produce educational materials for schools and curate a 'Parliament of Waste' event bringing together local people, politicians, artists and experts to debate the environmental impact of pollution and waste on health and wellbeing.