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Testing the Waters

Year Awarded

2024

Amount

€59,288.53

  • Organisation:Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
  • Audience:General Public
  • Format:Informal Education
  • Location:Mayo
  • Topic:STEAM

Project Summary

Centred around the river in Westport town, ‘Testing the Waters’ is a project led by the local community to provoke action on local climate issues. The project will consist of three elements:

  1. an art/science co-creation project between an artist, the community, and scientific experts to develop a site-specific artwork. This natural and biodiverse artwork will be installed in the river in Westport town and will be a way to introduce plants into the river. These plants will play a key role in improving water quality in the river.
  2. an accompanying citizen science project to measure the impact of natural growth in the river to encourage biodiversity.
  3. a series of talks and workshops to address some of the concerns raised by the artwork.

Testing the Waters will start a conversation about the role of sustainability and biodiversity in Irish towns. The artist will create an artistic intervention in conversation with local communities and scientific experts, including those from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Education, and School of Natural Sciences, and the Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO). The piece will be used as a provocation and a test bed for field research. A team of citizen scientists will be trained by LAWPRO on how to measure the quality of the water in the river. The water will be tested before, during, and after the installation to see if there have been any changes to the water quality, and if so, whether these changes have been of a positive nature.