Rising tides

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

#queerriverwetland prompted this project. @cop26uk #culturecop26 @jamesaldridgeart
The banks of the Severn contain, and succumb to, the tides. As the moon circles the earth oceans bulge forcing riverways to press up against their edges, overflow, then spread. When it breaks its banks it seeps along pathways and puddles in hollows. It races inland looking for routes to travel, or soft earth to sink into, weaving between rocks and walls, ignoring roads and railways. Humans can only stand and stare, from high on a hilltop.

Manmade barriers resist the river water and divert it to more gullible places, like fields and ditches. When the flash floods come in, fast and furious, they spread across the landscape, where the earth soaks it up to level the land. When the water recedes and the grass grows back, the field is like a billiard table – smooth, green, fertile and luscious.

The Severn has gendered mythologies ascribed to it of Sabrina and Hafren. Now, with climate change causing more flooding than ever, there is a tautness at the edges of the river. A tension not unlike the skin of a woman stretched over an unborn child. The edges are becoming blurred, strained until the waters break. Pregnant with what is to come.

In twenty years time this river I know so well will no longer be a river. It will be underwater, bar a few hills protruding above sea level. Islands. A river reborn, reconstructed. It is queer to think about this nearby future, but think, we must. To make us act. Now.