posted on 2020-06-16, 16:54authored byRichard S. White
SWEET WATERS 2016-17: sense-ing legacies of slave-ownership in Bath and along the River Avon
Additional authored films and soundscapes generated for installation not linked directly into the existing text and in this collection as separate items.
This item:
Installation media produced using walkers social media posting and
Richard White's field recordings and other documentation from the cycle
of walks. The work was produced initially for the Sweet Waters:Soundings
installation at Saltford Brass Mill in 2017 and used in subsequent
presentations. The media in this item is a further manifestation of the walk experience as part of a site specific
installation, intended to be projected onto uneven and distorting surfaces. Audio
files are Richard White's reading of letters of contract to the captains
of slave-trading ships leaving Bristol with goods produced along the
route of the Sweet Waters walks and some observation by the cousin of
William Beckford making 'picturesque' observations of the captured and
enslaved people he owned. The original letters to the ships captain are
held in Bristol Archives and used with permission. Beckfords book, 'A
Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica (1790) is available online
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004895993
Project Outline:
Developed over an 18 month period involving over 50 walkers and many
hundreds online, Sweet Waters was part of Richard White’s ongoing
investigation of walking arts as social justice intervention, developing
tactics for articulating and materialising corporeal experience and
affective resonance. The project resonates with UNESCO World Heritage
programmes, specifically attending to legacies of slave-ownership. The
project was commissioned for Bath Festival Fringe, funded by Arts
Council England with support from Bath Spa University, Festival of
Nature and Fringe Arts Bath. An installation at a heritage site, Saltford Brass Mill, followed
as part of Museums Week and Journey to Justice Bristol. Participation
was extended using social media with trails generated live and
aggregated. Referencing body fluids and the memory of water folded in
an understanding of the water cycle, the project generates insights and
observations on volatile and porous bodies (Longhurst 2001), the power
of things and memory making practices (Micieli-Voutsinas 2016; Bennett
2010).