Red River: Listening to a Polluted River

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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.