Features / rivers
Is it time to radically reimagine rivers?
There is a place, around the point that Hazel Brook meets the River Trym, where a giant once sat.
A huge boulder overlooks the gorge which this giant, Goram, is said to have created during a river-drinking contest for the affections of a beautiful woman, Avona.
When he learned his brother Vincent had won the contest he drowned himself in the Severn, where the side of his head (Steep Holm) and shoulder (Flat Holm) can be seen resting today.
This is an old tale concerning four of Bristol’s countless waterways and for anyone that has walked the Trym from Sea Mills to Blaise, where it meets the Hen, or Hazel Brook, it brings the landscape viscerally to life in both the mind’s eye and the imagination.
Now, in a new twist on a centuries-old story, the Avon herself is being brought to life.
Female-led creative arts group the Avonas have embodied the spirit of the river Avon in order to explore the question, is a river alive?
It’s the latest in a long line of creative efforts to gain the river the respect campaigners believe she is owed.
The giant puppet, both river goddess and demon, has been described as “a nuclear figurehead, a sea-devil, a rainbow fish, a drama queen, something fierce and beautiful with lobster hands and a lion’s face.”
Ultimately this version of Avona, brought to life by Bristol-based art collective the Avonas, is the spirit of the river that is known by those who swim in her, soothed by the sight and sense of her waters.
She stands for the voice of the river. She is a new story whispering and roaring a radical reimagining of the living world around us.
Avona, the spirit of the river Avon in puppet form, was ceremonially birthed from the river in August
It might be hard to comprehend rivers as ‘alive’ but it seems intuitive to describe them as ‘sick’ or ‘dying’.
85 per cent of rivers in England fall below good ecological standards. Serious pollution incidents by water companies increased by 60 per cent last year, with a new record of 3.61m hours of sewage released into English rivers, and the urban Avon was named the third most polluted of them. The movement calling for justice for waterways is growing.
It’s not outlandish to describe rivers with reference to human traits and qualities either.
“It’s mysterious in an unromantic way,” said Gerry Rowe of the Malago, his local river in Bedminster. “Heroic in its natural defiance of a highly built-up environment. Water will flow.”
Rowe is part of a group creating music reflecting the river’s “voice and character”. Participants of A River’s Song gave community artist Liam Taylor-West a sense of the river’s personality.
“Powerful, mysterious, downtrodden,” he reflects. “Somewhat mistreated or neglected – not only in the pollution sense, that’s true of all our rivers across Bristol and the UK, but the Malago has been put underground and diverted a lot over its history.”
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Taylor-West says creativity can help in exploring difficult topics. “We want this to be a celebration but are also aware the health of this stretch of river is very poor,” he explains.
“Art is very good at presenting negatives in a positive way – people love sad songs, for example. We want this music to be really beautiful, and full of nature. Yes, the river hasn’t been looked after but I think we can reflect that in a way that is still optimistic, that says ‘we can do better’. Creating a fun experience which highlights a negative thing.”
Art also excels at making visible what goes unsaid and expressing the intangible.
“Stories, art and creativity are so important as the idea of a river being alive is so difficult to conceptualise,” says Charlotte Sawyer, director of the Rave on for the Avon film that documents campaigners’ efforts to gain designated bathing status for their beloved swimming spot.
“We can’t access nature, we can’t swim in rivers, only three per cent of riverbanks in the UK are uncontested. We are physically cut off and we’ve also lost those ceremonies that might have helped us reflect on that. That’s why in Bristol this movement is not just citizen scientists testing the water – it’s artists, activists, filmmakers, storytellers.
“I can see the relief in people’s eyes [at screenings], to be able to talk about love and connection, to be able to celebrate with humour amid community.
“For ordinary people who don’t want to pollute for profit it’s so hard for us to affect change, it’s such a long journey. We need respite from that. People need creativity just to keep going and have hope.”
The River Avon met the goddess of the River Wye in a ceremonial parade to the River Usk at this year’s Green Man festival. These creative elements have brought a sense of joy and celebration to the campaign
The Avona puppet is part of the campaign to grant rights for the River Avon that are already afforded to people and corporations.
In similar style, the Wye – downgraded in health status to ‘unfavourable, declining’ by Natural England – now has an appointed guardian, ecologist Dr Louise Bodnar, who speaks for the river in council policy and decision making.
The Manifesto for the Wye – created by “a coalition of river guardians on the frontline” – has inspired the development of the Thriving Avon Charter, created by the Conham Bathing campaign group, which states that the river has a right to flow free from pollution.
“Nowhere else is that stated,” says Sawyer. “There’s no law, certainly not one that’s implemented, there’s no protection and, even if there was, the legislation is too weak to back it up. We report incidents and nothing is done.”
The Charter, based on the Earth Law Centre’s Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers, will be displayed at Bristol Aquarium as part of an exhibition for World Rivers Day from September 27.
Already signed by hundreds, it will be an opportunity for more to put their commitment to the river’s rights in writing.
Legal personhood status was first granted to the Whanganui river in New Zealand and India’s Ganges in 2017; two years later Bangladesh legally designated all its rivers as legal persons and in 2021 guardians were appointed to represent the interests of Canada’s Mutuhekau Shipu in legal and environmental matters.
Now it seems England is catching up, in no small part due to author Robert Macfarlane whose latest book, Is a River Alive?, describes the “political movement with its philosophical roots in animism” as one that is affecting real change.
“I believe that in this country, within 20 years, we are going to have seen a remarkable turnaround in our rivers… change is coming from the bankside up,” he said in July, referencing the success of the River Wye campaigners.
It seems Bristol is leading the way, in logistical as well as creative terms: Lawyers for Nature are convening the inaugural National River Guardian summit at Bristol Beacon in October.
As announced by barrister Paul Powlesland, it will be a three-day event capitalising on the movement’s current momentum, bringing together campaigners to explore what river rights can look like in the UK.
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One Rave on for the Avon scene that caught widespread attention was a poet’s marriage to the river after which she floated, Ophelia-style, in the water in full flowing wedding dress.
It was a ceremony attended by a handful of campaigners on a riverbank side in Bristol, yet it has seen the now Mrs Meg Avon appear on This Morning, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and on screens around the globe: 4,000 and counting have seen the film.
“People are really connecting to the nature rights movement. It’s a shift in understanding of our relationship to nature, from separation and extraction to relationship and reciprocity,” says Sawyer. “The movement isn’t trying to say the river is a person, but is trying to expand our understanding of what life is, how we connect with and live alongside non-human life.”
Taylor-West agrees the approach could yield results: “A river being alive is going to be too far for some people but, practically, most can see we’re not treating rivers well. If a sense of giving legal rights to them is a way of facilitating that end then job done,” he says.
After all, where are we without relationships? “It’s the grassroots that has been creating change,” says Sawyer. “Grassroots, community campaigning has turned the tide on this, which is really exciting.
“I want to shout about our female-led, joyful, eco-feminism campaign. It’s why I feel so hopeful.”
Find out more about the River Joy art exhibition and World Rivers Day celebration, sponsored by House & Co Property, at www.eightysita.com/post/bristol-world-rivers-day-celebration-sat-27th-sep-bristol
All images: the Avonas
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