Project 1: Artistic socially engaged research
Project 2: Artistic research
Supervisors: Heike Salzer, Muriel Tinel-Temple
The river has maintained fascination for artists and storytellers throughout human civilization as a symbolic and metaphoric source for human imagination, as well as being instrumental in nurturing life, work and play. These two arts practice-as-research doctoral projects present a unique opportunity to reckon with the role of human/more than human agency in riverscapes and riverine culture. They will explore the people who live, work, amble and play near, in or on the river, who are in dialogue or dispute with river. The projects will be approached through embodied research, via the disciplines of dance, somatic practice, film and audio-visual practices, cultivating new creative or participatory methods of engaging with the topic. They aim to offer opportunities to connect more deeply to river water systems, cultivating a heightened awareness of self, community, and the environment. There is the potential for both projects to collaborate with local organisations
Potential thematic topics may include: Rivers as a site of (collective) memory, emotion and transformation; Natural elements/non-humans within and beside rivers; The challenge of human exploitation of rivers; Rivers as both ecological and metaphorical landscapes; The connections to, folklores about, and use of rivers by local communities; Participatory methods to enhance awareness of connections to rivers; Eco-biography; Rivers as sites for placemaking; Time, flow and movement of rivers; Rivers as sites of/vehicles for/victims of death, decay and destruction; River relationships of communities, users and groups such as swimmers, fishers, walkers, bathers, gazers, polluters, boat folk; Environmental urgencies, water management, pollution, flood, sustainability and preservation, activism; The river as a living entity with its own “voice” .
Note all practice-as-research PhDs at Roehampton have a written component. In your application please clearly explain whether you are applying for project 1 or project 2 and outline the desired artistic/socially engaged approach and methods taken, along with a sense of how the project might partner with local organisations.
