An interdisciplinary, participatory workshop, 'Re-Contextualising Hydrology: Aesthetic Explorations of Water + Data', took place on Friday 10 January at The Gregson Community Centre in Lancaster. This full-day workshop was co-organised by David Green (UKCEH, Lancaster) and Deniz Johns (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts).
It was attended by a combination of artists, hydrologists, data scientists, social scientists and policy developers. The workshop explored how artistic and creative practices can make hydrology and hydrological data more accessible and relatable to decision makers, potential collaborators in the scientific and research communities, and wider publics. The workshop included a group walk to the Lune aqueduct and nearby flood defenses, a keynote address from Professor Keith Beven, and participants shared examples of projects combining water, data and art in various configurations.
The overarching aim of the workshop was to bring together a regional community of interest and to lay the groundwork for further research on creative approaches to digital research infrastructure design. The next steps will be to share the workshop outcomes with different communities in a variety of creative formats, including poetry, inspired by the tradition of ‘poetic inquiry’. The workshop was supported by the Centre for Excellence in Environmental Data Science (CEEDS).