‘Myth's, Hauntings and Disobedience’ – London Climate Story Bank

London Climate Story Bank invited me to make work for their summer exhibition at Hypha Gallery in Bank. The exhibition focused on how the climate crisis is changing London and Londoners. With this as the prompt, I wanted to explore what London’s history could tell us about its future.

Underneath Bank station flows an ancient underground-ed River, the River Walbrook, along the banks of which a melange of ancient stories are layered upon one another. Beneath the concrete are tales of polluted Medieval water flows, Boudican revolts, a Roman bull-worshipping cult, and an array of flora and fauna, including the humble eel. Eels have a long history as an icon in London, whether as a food source (eel pie?), a cornerstone of the Medieval economy (in the 11th century, over 540,000 eels were used as payment for rent each year) or as a recurring character in local folklore (some said eels were created when horsehairs fall into running streams, others that these ‘monstrous worms’ could grow legs and walk, or twist themselves into knots released only by thunder).

My work, as part of LCSB, aimed to make visible these layers of history that surround us, in order to remind us that cities are made of layers of stories, both human and more-than. These stories challenge where fiction and fact begin and end, forcing us to think beyond our human-centric norms when dealing with complex issues like the climate crisis.

The project comprised of an artwork in the gallery and a guided walkshop. In the gallery, a print was created that reflected the different layers of story in the area, with disobedient eels swimming around the exhibition space. For the walkshop, participants were given riso-printed zines and “attuning blobs” to notice and uncover layers of story in London. Together, we followed the flow of the Walbrook, meeting eels, ancient Roman relics, and finally the waters of the river themselves.

All materials were lovingly riso-printed on Gadigal Land by Alisa at Pinch Press.

This walkshop takes inspiration from my work with Follow the Creek in Sydney.

Thank you to Nina Carter and Martha Dillon.