Extraction and submersion, surface and depth. Using photographic practice to explore literary and folkloric imaginings of post-industrial landscape.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Faculty of Science
Abstract
This project is a crea>ve and cri>cal enquiry into the buried and submerged post-industrial landscapes of
Mid-Wales and the West Midlands, linked through the wri>ngs of author Francis BreF Young (1884-
1954). Driven by a concern with the now inaccessible landscape, submerged by water in reservoir sites in
the Welsh areas of Vyrnwy, Tryweryn and Elan, buried through in-fill in mines in Dudley, the enquiry will
explore how their histories and absences are made visible, traversing these con>ngent landscapes
through archival research, literary and folkloric inves>ga>on, and photographic prac>ce.
Francis BreF Young wrote a series of 'Mercian' novels set along the aqueduct route from the Elan Valley
to Birmingham, having witnessed the vast work in progress as a child, with fic>onalised accounts of the
dam build in two novels (Young & Young, 1913, Young 1932). The Elan reservoirs made by the
Birmingham Corpora>on, 1893-1904, evidence one of many instances of water collec>on in Wales by
English ci>es, from the 1890s through to the controversial compulsory flooding of Tryweryn in the 1960s.
Each instance of flooding led to the displacement of communi>es and fundamental changes to the
landscape, offering an enquiry into the rela>onship between capitalist produc>on and picturesque and
sublime landscape. Young's novels are notable in their evoca>ve and specific landscapes, a non-human
perspec>ve opening an understanding of the post-human landscape (McCully, 1996). Young's asser>on
that the building of the reservoir creates a doubling of the natural beauty of the landscape, in the
mirrored expanse of surface water, highlights the complexi>es of meaning in a technologically produced
shi]ing landscape, now tourist site, whose ends and beginnings point to our current ecological crisis.
Whilst there has been some enquiry into the geographies of his Black Country novels (Jay, 1975) and a
short chapter on the haunted landscapes of Undergrowth and others (Valen>ne, 2017), these lack close
reading, with no geographic inves>ga>on into the dam novels, which provide a rich basis for place-based
enquiry.
Mid-Wales and the West Midlands, linked through the wri>ngs of author Francis BreF Young (1884-
1954). Driven by a concern with the now inaccessible landscape, submerged by water in reservoir sites in
the Welsh areas of Vyrnwy, Tryweryn and Elan, buried through in-fill in mines in Dudley, the enquiry will
explore how their histories and absences are made visible, traversing these con>ngent landscapes
through archival research, literary and folkloric inves>ga>on, and photographic prac>ce.
Francis BreF Young wrote a series of 'Mercian' novels set along the aqueduct route from the Elan Valley
to Birmingham, having witnessed the vast work in progress as a child, with fic>onalised accounts of the
dam build in two novels (Young & Young, 1913, Young 1932). The Elan reservoirs made by the
Birmingham Corpora>on, 1893-1904, evidence one of many instances of water collec>on in Wales by
English ci>es, from the 1890s through to the controversial compulsory flooding of Tryweryn in the 1960s.
Each instance of flooding led to the displacement of communi>es and fundamental changes to the
landscape, offering an enquiry into the rela>onship between capitalist produc>on and picturesque and
sublime landscape. Young's novels are notable in their evoca>ve and specific landscapes, a non-human
perspec>ve opening an understanding of the post-human landscape (McCully, 1996). Young's asser>on
that the building of the reservoir creates a doubling of the natural beauty of the landscape, in the
mirrored expanse of surface water, highlights the complexi>es of meaning in a technologically produced
shi]ing landscape, now tourist site, whose ends and beginnings point to our current ecological crisis.
Whilst there has been some enquiry into the geographies of his Black Country novels (Jay, 1975) and a
short chapter on the haunted landscapes of Undergrowth and others (Valen>ne, 2017), these lack close
reading, with no geographic inves>ga>on into the dam novels, which provide a rich basis for place-based
enquiry.
People |
ORCID iD |
| JOHN WYLIE (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Sian MacFarlane (Student) |