Imagining Change: Coastal Conversations

As part of the Impact Fellowship, the Programme Directorate was invited to produce the AHRC contribution for the international conference ‘Planet under Pressure’, in London, 26-29th March 2012.

In our final meeting with our Advisory Board it had been suggested that we make a film featuring research undertaken by projects funded by the AHRC Landscape and Environment Programme. This sounded like a good idea and when we were asked to contribute to ‘Planet under Pressure’ we immediately thought of producing a short film that would showcase the value of arts and humanities research in understanding environmental change, through their focus on landscape, culture and imagination.

Titled Imagining Change: Coastal Conversations, the film features three projects that showcase different kinds of creative engagements between arts and humanities scholars and coastal landscapes. The main body of the film consists of interviews/conversations between Stephen Daniels and our kind contributors:

Caitlin DeSilvey, a cultural geographer from the University of Exeter (Cornwall campus), an investigator on the Anticipatory Histories Researching Environmental Change network

Mike Pearson, Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Aberystwyth and PI of Carrlands and creator of Warplands

Simon Read, a visual artist and lecturer at Middlesex University who was part of the Learning to Live with Water Researching Environmental Change network.

The main aim is to show how we need human and natural histories, and artistic as well as scientific perspectives on coastal change.

Filming took place between 6th and 10th February 2012 at Mullion Harbour, Cornwall, Alkborough Flats, North Lincolnshire, and the Deben estuary, Suffolk. You can read about the filming trip on the University of Nottingham’s School of Geography blog. The film is produced by the company ‘Nice and Serious’ who specialise in making films about environmental and ethical issues.