Other Activities

CULTURAL EVENTS

Monday 4 September
18:00 Performance: ‘Too Much of Water’ (Workshop Theatre, School of English)
This special presentation will provide much food for thought as the conference gets underway. “Too Much of Water” is an acclaimed, one-man storytelling performance, which explores some of the human impacts of the Boxing Day floods of 2015. Written and presented by Steve Bottoms (Professor of Contemporary Theatre, University of Manchester), as part of a 3-year research project titled
“Towards Hydro-Citizenship”, the piece draws on personal interviews conducted with flood victims in the Shipley area of Bradford. Originally commissioned for Saltaire Festival, 2016, the piece has since toured widely. It will be followed immediately by a Q&A discussion considering implications for the world of flood management.
18:30 – 20:00 Drinks Reception, Parkinson Court

Tuesday 5 September
Discover Leeds. Take a walk along the river or choose from one of the many restaurants to visit.

Wednesday 6 September
Preview Screening: High Water Common Ground 18:00 University House
Inspired by the tremendous community spirit during, and in the aftermath of the Boxing Day floods of 2015, ecologist and filmmaker Andy Clark set out to discover what communities all around the UK have been doing to work with natural processes to combat flood risk. This is a pre-release preview of a project that has joined government agencies, charitable trusts, and numerous community action groups. www.highwaterfilm.co.uk
Calder – A short film by Geoff Brokate and Paula Sutherland 18:30 University House 
Geoff Brokate and Paula Sutherland were commissioned by Mytholmroyd Arts Festival in 2015 to make a film about the village of Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire. Little did they know that their initial ideas for a film would be overtaken by the dramatic events of Boxing Day, 2015.
Unearthing surprising stories of a community coming together in adversity, Calder documents the transformative impact of the flood and the personal challenges faced by individuals attempting to make positive changes in its aftermath. mytholmroydartsfestival.org.uk/film-tour
19:00 – 23:00 International Buffet served in the Refectory

Art Exhibitions

Tuesday 5 – Wednesday 6 September
Throughout the conference there will be two art exhibitions: one showing work from flood projects by
Joanna Brown, an artist-in-residence with the University of Leeds, and the other, Flood Response, by the Leeds community.

Artist-in-Residence – Dr Joanna Brown
Dr Brown, an artist-in-residence with water@leeds and the School of Geography, is also an activist and
mathematician. She creates work to explore; to express thought and ideas through intuition, play and observation. Uniting many of her projects is a desire to draw out connections and patterns, whilst retaining a backdrop of the unknown. 
Over the last few years, Dr Brown has been working on four photographic projects concerned with flooding: Water Marks (ongoing), ARKive (2014-2016), Back to the Future? (2015-2017) and Time and Tide (2015-2017). Three of these projects began when she trawled through hundreds of postcards and photographs of flooded towns and cities across the world, from the early twentieth century onward. As she looked she began to observe common responses and patterns across time and space.
For the fourth project, Water Marks, she is collecting flood damaged photographs and the stories that go with them. 
www.jozart.org

Flood Response
‘In late December 2015 Leeds was affected by one of the most significant floods since records began. Stormy weather, saturated ground, and high river levels led to severe flooding across many parts of the city, particularly along the River Aire. The museums at Thwaite Mills and at Armley Mills were badly affected, along with people’s lives, businesses, and homes. This is why we created the exhibition for Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills, which originally ran from December 2016 to June 2017.
The deluge of water affected the people of Leeds in many ways, causing hardships and pain, but also uniting communities in the face of adversity.
The community exhibition ‘Flood Response’ was co-curated by the people of Leeds to mark the event one year on. The photographs, stories, and artistic responses have all come from the Leeds community.’