Sensitives Stream is an online digital artwork commissioned by Arts Catalyst which included workshops on the River Thames in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery and along the River Porter in Sheffield. The artwork highlights the importance of river dwelling organisms and how their presence or absence indicates broader stories in relation to ecosystems, environmental stress and human activity. Matterlurgy worked with environmental scientists Prof. Philip Warren and Prof. Lorraine Maltby, from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield to understand how river ecosystems are studied. This collaboration involved sharing research methods and approaches, fieldwork and data interpretation.

The online artwork offers three distinct journeys: you are invited to (1) dive into the river with two organisms, Caddisfly Larva and Sludge Worm; (2) flow with a collection of text scores; and (3) dwell by listening to audio chapters about the process of cross-disciplinary fieldwork. The project reveals river organisms as both sensitive indicators of change and world-making actors that perform sentience and knowledge in ways that exceed the human. Topics relating to art and science methods, the production and analysis of data, as well as industrial pasts and chemical futures interweave throughout the site.

You can find out more about the project on Arts Catalyst’s website and read a blog about the Whitechapel Gallery workshops.