Marsh women

This visual presentation draws together stories of women and wetlands, and examines their impact on the landscape, ecologically and culturally, through physical making. Wetlands are transient in nature. Histories, identities and memories are dependent on fluctuating water levels, and alongside natural challenges to marsh environments, human interventions have irrevocably changed wetlands across the world. Boundaries between land and water shift, creating marginal territories. Cultural heritage often mirrors the physical geography of these landscapes – transformation is an inherent quality of wetlands - but often this heritage is at risk of draining away completely.

Moving across Mesopotamia (Iraq), Florida, (USA) and East Sussex, (UK) I put forward three examples of wetlands that have faced this challenge and how women have played a role in (re)materialising these sites. Spanning activism, labour and documentary, I want to look at how such landscapes have been brought back into being, geographically and/or culturally, using the physical act of making as a form of land reclamation. Drawing on geographic and historic subject matter, this presentation forms part of a wider body of work exploring past, present and future stories that observe the shaping of communities by physical environment. Approaching visual communication as a form of storytelling, I position contemporary illustration practice alongside other place-based disciplines in the exploration of time, space and movement. Broadly, my research investigates concepts of visualisation, imaging and graphic representation in understanding and communicating readings of transient landscapes and how illustrative strategies might be used to inform engagement with heritage, land use and policy.