Rivers 2020
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When thinking about my personal connection to the River Thames for the FT Weekend Magazine commission - The River 22/23 August 2020 - I was excited by the discovery that three tributaries of the Thames; the Fleet, Tyburn and Westbourne, rise and flow as close as 100m from where I'm sitting now, then on down all the way through the city. I began by revisiting their sources with new knowledge, and soon things began to click: so many street names derive from the shape of the landscape and people's relation to it. Hilltops, brooks and wells that were in front of my nose all this time but never registered, suddenly became visible. I came across a landscape where there was a pond once painted by Constable. Although now invisible the surrounding landscape is largely unchanged, and, by following the lush growth of the vegetation, I was able to follow the invisible underground river across Hampstead Heath.
Following the rediscovery of the local area, I decided to take journeys on foot from the sources of these tributaries, following them from the hilltop where I live, down to where they meet the Thames.
Maybe it's another effect of the lockdown, but the idea of following the rivers from beginning to end, a plan with such a clear structure, felt good. After all, when I visit other cities I walk for hours to explore them, but never in the city that has been my home for the last 23 years. I expected to find many subjects to photograph, but so much is hidden, even the confluences of the rivers and the Thames itself.
Halfway Down the Middle in the Old Deep Valley, The Constable Pond and Transpontine are derived from juxtaposing images from these walks.
By following the path of the rivers, the walks placed me in the landscape; physically positioned with knowledge like a bat using its sonar. I experienced the gentle downward incline the whole way from the sources to the Thames. I felt that I have been so detached from my immediate landscape that discovering such a simple fact was very moving. It made me realise how my experience of the landscape in London is so divided into small sections that it hadn't registered with me how the land itself is formed.
This also made me think about how often we refer in everyday conversation to which side of the river we live on and use this to locate ourselves. Transpontine refers to my relationship with my partner who lives on the other side of the river, and how the landscape still has a big subliminal influence on the psychology of its inhabitants.
Interestingly on at least two occasions recently, friends have talked about how people of nomadic origin can locate each other through an invisible network. Words, "radar" and interaction with the landscape produce better results than Wi-Fi. These senses form a very important part of who we are and yet we are losing them by being so unaware of the landscape we inhabit.