Dark Water Thames: Twixt Land and Sea, Past and Present

Join us at Orleans House Gallery and on the banks of the River Thames for an immersive experience exploring the memories, rituals and myths of this ancient waterway.  

Speculative writer, artist and pleasure activist Ama Josephine Budge has been walking beside the river, gathering its debris and castaways and repurposing them into an ‘anti-monument’.  

During this event Ama invites you to join her on a river walk where you will gift the ‘anti-monument’ back to the water as you think about how the river is as a site of history, folklore and possibility. There is also the opportunity to remember the stories of those who arrived upon its shores filled with dreams and those for whom the Thames is a sacred passage between past, present and future. 

After the river walk there will be refreshments, a film screening and talk by academics from St Mary’s University at Orleans House Gallery.  

Ama’s research is part of Orleans House Gallery’s Cultural Reforesting Programme and is in partnership with St Mary’s University, Twickenham.   

This event is part of the Being Human Festival. Being Human is the UK’s national festival of the humanities, which celebrates humanities research through public engagement. The festival is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the UK’s national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities. The festival works in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.