Bodies' Publics / Take Me To Your River

Take Me To Your River was a Design project undertaken by students from MA Design Expanded Practice at Goldsmiths, University of London, inviting designs that activate novel encounters and experiences with rivers for local communities. Outcomes of this multi-component project include a 10-week postgraduate practice research brief, a project publication and a public showcase in Ladywell Park in Lewisham.

The responses of the six groups at times support playful encounters with water as a material. At other times, invented ceremonies emphasise the river as a symbolic force, conveying our wishes to the ocean. The industrial and maritime histories of the Thames also feature here, with obscured and often contested fragments of the past reassembled. As an alternative to citizen scientists, these projects reimagine river users as creative civics, forging inventive associations with rivers as spaces of environmental sustainability and public enagement with placemaking.

The projects were supported by the Civic Catalysts programme at Goldsmiths and showcased as part of London River Week 2023.

Project publication on Goldsmiths Research Online.

London Rivers week event on Goldsmiths Research Online.

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