Seven Streams - Introduction

Seven Streams is an investigation of Bradford Beck, its tributaries, history, possible future and its relationship with the former Bradford Canal.

The project was commissioned for The Arts of Place, a programme of new media works celebrating the birth of Bradford's City Park, shown in various locations around the city centre in October 2010. See www.artsofplace.org.uk/bradford

Seven Streams was presented as a video installation and display at Pop Up art space in Centenary Square, and as a dramatised lecture with musical and video accompaniment at the historic Courtroom in City Hall.

The display included:

• 4 films showing the course of Bradford Beck and its tributaries
• Live CCTV feed from a camera mounted on Bradford College's Garden Mills building upstream of Westholme Street bridge, showing a view of the Beck just before it goes underground
• Large up to date OS Steeetview map of Bradford showing watercourses
• Historical maps showing the progressive covering-over of the Beck during the 19th century
• Pictures from a comprehensive photographic survey of the Beck, made by C.H.Wood in 1962-3
• Before & after photographs of the recently established Chellow Dean and Pitty Beck Wetlands
• Information on the Bradford Canal supplied by John Allison
• Reports and information from Bradford Council tracing the history of City Park proposals, and an information stand/survey about flood protection
• C.H.Wood's 1947 aerial photograph of the city centre, overlaid with the underground route of the Beck

The films were made over the summer of 2010 and work as a video diary of my explorations, presented as linear journeys. Whilst it could be claimed that, in close-up, one stream is much like another, I hope that the individual films add up to a classification of the seven tributaries by character and topography, a taxonomy of Bradford's watercourses.

This blog records my main research findings, and includes contributions from experts on local history and geography, as well as stories contributed by exhibition visitors. It is intended as a legacy of the exhibition, and I hope will lead to a developing conversation about the future of the Beck.