Turning the Tide: water as medicine
We explore water’s role in sustaining health for our global and community futures: a multi-media enquiry and collaboration between arts and science, evidence and practice, medicine and ecology.
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What is the role of water in our climate and nature crisis?
This conference exhibition aims to explore the role of water in sustainable health care, research and teaching. We consider water’s role in the three interconnecting themes: water under pressure, water and well-being, and water as elemental essence:
Water Elemental: abstract or visceral responses to the nature of water as a source of life.
Water Under Pressure: how drought, flood, desalination, river degradation, chemical pollution and coastal stress have impacted on the public health.
Water and Well-Being: the joys of being alongside water, drinking the stuff, hydrotherapy, blue prescribing.
We welcome a wide variety of contributions from as far afield as Africa and Australia, others from colleagues and students at University of Bristol.
Four, monthly workshops supported the exhibition, online and in person, to reach a national arts/science/community healthcare audience, generating interest and encouraging shy creatives to submit. The workshops generated recordings of Dr Georgie Sowman on the work of Healthcare Ocean, Alan Kellas on an overview of Blue Health and Catherine Lamont-Robinson sharing examples of arts-based research methodologies.
UoB medical students who have studied Blue Health on Special Choice Projects have also submitted to the exhibition giving an insight into how water and health has been covered on this course. This points to some of the ways future doctors could deepen and broaden their understanding of how water and sustainable health care are linked. The UoB intercalated Medical Humanities course is also represented in the final collection.
Students currently studying on the Blue Health SCP are seeking and collating feedback and responses to the conference exhibition, helping to inform a forthcoming educational module on Nature, Water and Human health care, being written with Healthcare Ocean by Dr Georgie Sowman.
The legacy of this subsequent online exhibition a portfolio of resources for medical education. We hope this forum is a foundation for continuing enquiry and will host a diverse research teaching and practice network interested in Water and Medicine.
Exhibition creators
Dr Alan Kellas and Dr Catherine Lamont-Robinson.
With special thanks to:
Professor Trevor Thompson
Dr Simon Hall
The convening SAPC committee, the Wills Memorial team and Gary Knott.
Thanks also to Turning the Tide workshop collaborators Dr Gemma Connell, Will Walton-Freeman, clinicians Irene Garcia, Maggie Lambert and our 2024 Year 3 Blue Health programme students Iona Collins and Perrnette Farrell & Emma Button, Izzy Saunders, Holly Luscombe, Damisi Dare and Yohanna Yared from previous years.
Nature with us, not nature for us…
Water Elemental: A call to change mind-sets and embrace inter-being for planetary health
The Rehearsal
Water Elemental: Adrift between life and death…Flow-lake, Clevedon
Paper Boats
Water Elemental: Blurring the lines – elderberry ink on skin
An ode to kidneys
Water Elemental: A hard-won appreciation of our internal waterways
Water Body
Water Elemental: Embodied Ecology
Commonplace and strange…
Water Elemental: A mesmerising visual encounter through shallow waters
Nature’s Fractals
Water Elemental: Close observations give rise to geometric interpretations of the River Frome
Source to Sea and Back
Water Elemental: A kaleidoscope of insights around water through image and poetry
Monochrome Seascape
Water Elemental: a celebration of the ever-changing sea, its inspiring non-conformity and source of treasured family memories
Azure Nights
Water Elemental: Water’s diverse presence expressed through a lyrical sweep of forms and environments
Childhood Adventures
Water Elemental: Treasured memories of spontaneity and connection inspire thoughts around living holistically
You never not-belonged
Water Elemental: Intertwined ancestral and experiential perspectives of ‘River’ through poetry, song and narrative.
Moon, tides, and cycles
Water Under Pressure: Lived experience of wellness being interminably linked to medication cycles
Wildlife Wanes
Water Under Pressure: Conflicts within healthcare around medications and cumulative planetary harm
Water Shame
Water Under Pressure: Mounting inequalities of access to clean water and the healthcare implications laid bare
For my baby, only tears
Water Under Pressure: The devastating impact of lack of access to safe water and sanitation for pregnant women and mothers globally
A Tale of 3 Rivers
Water Under Pressure: The progressive degradation of our rivers and threat to biodiversity
And So I Watch You From Afar
Water Under Pressure: Interconnectedness and fragility fuse in these Cyanotype prints
Thin blue line wrapped around the world
Water Under Pressure: A global, inter-species perspective invites us to honour our shared seas
Part the Ocean
Water Under Pressure: Chemical engineers and artists co-research ways to communicate the challenges and developments around water purification
Water Welcomes your Quest..ion
Water and Well-Being: The wealth of ways we can respect, protect and relish the roles water plays in our lives.
Tuning In to Tune Out
Water and Well-Being: Between floating and submergence…holistic re-calibration
Cruising while Fishing
Water and Well-Being: The time-honoured, steadfast work of knowing the waters and fishing for a livelihood
Wave Kinetics
Water and Well-Being: Embodied perspectives following a voyage on the tall ship Tenacious inspire 3-dimensional forms.
Blue Health Smiles
Water and Well-Being: A multi-sensory, inter-species waterside account
At Sea with Disability and Blue Health
Water and Well-Being: Water-based experiential student placements
Each Drop
Water and Well-Being: Water as a connecting and unifying force
The Ripple Effect
Water and Well-Being: Participant experiences at the River Avon drawing on art, archaeology and ecology.
A Deep Dive into SW!M 75
Water and Well-Being: NHS staff in Weston-Super-Mare talk about the role of water in their lives
Almost Synchro Meets Bollywood
Water and Well-Being: Tackling inequalities and reducing social isolation in end-of-life care and bereavement.
Coastal Tonic
Water and Well-Being: Senses and the Coast – drawing on historical attitudes to healthcare
Embodied, contemplative beach labyrinth rituals
Water and Well-Being: Healing depression, lonliness, grief and anxiety
Exhibition workshops: Images to come
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