Rivers—mouths—tides—memories: A creative, inter‐deep‐mapping of two river/tidal places. Love of place, memory and affect; movements, patterns, marks, and practices of care

Abstract

This article sets out the authors' attachments to, and memories of, two tidal river/ channel landscapes and how these are being folded into collaborative work, which brings these places to attention through art practice and shared reflection. The rivers/channels in question are given voice in the introduction and ideas of the ecologies of mouths and river mouths, particularly those tidal, are explored in the following sections. Aspects of polyvocality and deep mapping are employed to reveal the unique characteristics of these places-particularly their tidal patterns and rhythms and our concerns for them. An art project, Tidal Timespace, lies at the heart of this article with the role of memories, shared memories, and our relationships to place as key themes. The descriptive accounts of the authors' respective place memories are set in the margins of the article in two columns. We conclude with considerations of expanded notions of ecology, and we add that loss of place, the passing of time, and wider senses of ecocide and extinction run like shadows through this narrative.

Place‐making in waterscapes: Wetlands as palimpsest spaces of recreation

“…Our collective slow disconnection with the natural world, at least from a global North perspective, is evidence of the usurpation of natural rhythms in favour of regulated, ordered, time‐efficient processes within modern political economies. Jones and Green (2022, 459) site road bridges and tunnels as the infrastructure which distances local communities from the tidal flows and seasonal flooding which accompany estuarine waterscapes. Modernity enables humans to circumvent nature's ‘awkwardness’, but in turn diminishes us and our awareness of the natural world through separating us from our dwelling environments.…”