At 19.15 (7.15 pm GMT) on 1st May InspiralLondon starts a livestream with a short introduction to our collective Hydracity Streamings Chorus, a mix of watery duskscapes, flowing through early twilight from North Marseille to Thamesmead, to North Peckham across to ancient woodlands, meandering through suburban Reading. You are invited to live mix the streamings by navigating the duskscapes, by following the shifts of focus, as dusk moves towards Reading.

Starting 19.15 London Time from North Marseille Chorus (Charlie Fox) we will be wading long, in the vicinity of North Marseille’s unkempt streams and watery hollows; ending at Miramar where Cezanne's umbrella pines stand still - under sudden threat of being cut down to be replaced by containers.

Focus from 19.45 on Thamesmead Canal Chorus, (Calum F Kerr & Miyuki Kasahara) from the watery commons of Thamesmead, around Southmere lake teaming with coot, geese, grebe, moorhen, swan, tufted duck. Tracking above ground and below ground watery habitats, canals and pipes. 

Focus from 20.15 on Peck Marshland Chorus (Rachel Gomme) ingress/outgress from Peckham Common reflects on free flow/restriction of watery commons. Following the course of the Peck Stream from Earl Sluice back to its source on One Tree Hill.

Focus from 20.35 on Earley Chorus (Sarah Sparkes and Ian Thompson) will bivouac in what remains of the ancient Forest of Earley – a precious strip of woodland lost in the depths of suburbia next to a meandering stream that flows into the Thames via the river Loddon.

Our Chorus Streamings introduction includes some occassional live discussion: of the listening sights; the critical and practical aspects of Hydracity explorations; collective ways of listening inspired by soundcamp; the relationship of our ‘on the ground mapping’ with ‘on the ground listening’; auraldiversities and the otherness that oozes from the watery commons. 

Hydracity brings artists and public together to investigate London’s watery network, the interlocking ideas & currents that flow in/out the Thames. We focus on collective co-creation through on the ground mapping, ecology, the environment and placemaking; creating a network of alternative histories for our watery commons that invite audiences to collaborate in re-imagining the city as a fluid ecosystem, by exploring: other narratives for places, people, landscape within Thames Valley; novel ways to experience together and understand the city’s waterways; complex ecosystems of cohabiting/cooperating; our own body as watery ecosystem within wider watery commons – in the merging of solidity and fluidity; water as a regenerative resource for shifting times. All activities reflect something of the hydra-like city, whose legendary regenerative ability offers overlapping narratives for this complex watery network.

Hydracity 2021 is an ambitious, timely, transformational programme of work, linked to a novel programme of co-creation, open workshops & public engagement. The activity is delivered by a wide range of artists, artist collectives & multidisciplinary partners across London. along the Thames and out into the Estuary. Hydracity re-imagines the city’s river system as one organism with a slow-motion evolution like a hydra’s looping locomotion; in geological time the estuary extends and retracts according to prevailing conditions. By reimagining the city as space of water, we track the nature of the radical changes, wrought on the Valley’s watery arteries and create other future visions, other liquid states, other understandings.