Historically, villages were often built close to bodies of water. Rivers especially have such a strong connotation of being the link between the inland and the ocean. I believe this is stored in our genetic memory. Riverside is a floating space; a metaphor of escapism and liberation. I have lived by the Scottish river Nith for nearly a decade now. During the pandemic, I began to explore the river banks looking for artefacts from when the county town of Dumfries was a thriving port. Along the way, however, I found, however, much evidence of the economic decline this region is going through.
The project "The Floating Baloon" is a response to the AoP brief "People, places, things" in my 2nd year at the University of Cumbria.
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