Drawing the Hidden River is an interactive site-specific temporal art piece, it’s a walk by a river that no one can see, a rich metaphor for all the unseen forces that shape our lives.

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 Footprinting the river path in a clay slip, pulls up the clay belly of the riverbed to the tarmac and pavement shod urban landscapes which the river formed. 

The Hackney Brook, one of many of the lost rivers of London culverted underground still flows forgotten under our feet, out of sight, out of mind.  It snakes under houses and roads occasionally spilling out in wet times at the bottom of Stamford Hill and The Narrow Way, traces of its presence are left in street names.

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 Fleetingly footprints appear recalling the river, making the invisible visible, an act of soft anarchy, mischief, searching. Work touches into ordinary life and can be found, encountered, and participated with, input is welcomed.Stickers and postcards sharing a QR code are left along the way linking people to the website which is a workbook of sorts. 

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There is a dynamic cultural element pulsing amidst all the concrete, tarmac and facades ofLondon streets.Catchment areas of river systems hold many worlds, a multiplex of narratives continually shifting.

Taking off your shoes and placing the sensitive sole of your foot dipped in mud on hard shod earth recalling the river below is an act of reconnection and human rewilding. 

 

Perhaps as we lament the diminishment of the natural world we can also remember that our human nature is intrinsically interlinked, and ask is our diversity of being, thinking, experiencing, dreaming also being diminished?

What invisible, forgotten or supressed narratives and flows shape and hold us, and what can be rediscovered or recalled to restore balance?