Storying Water is an artist residency and research project at CREWW: The Centre for Resilience in Environmental, Water and Waste at the University of Exeter. It aims to engage diverse audiences in the water system and issues around its future resilience and to inspire action, and to demonstrate the value of building in collaborative creative processes and approaches to storytelling alongside the transmission of facts and data to maximise the impact of valuable environmental science research. A key element of the project will be a podcast series exploring water resilience through a journey down the River Exe from source to sea featuring expert interviews. This project involves collaboration with CREWW scientists and many organisational partners, including the project funder, South West Water. A fictional audio work will follow, exploring the water system and its more-than-human inhabitants. Please sign up to the mailing list to hear about new releases.

The Storying Water project seeks to engage diverse audiences imaginatively and actively with the water system and its resilience. This aim is not limited to the outputs of the project but includes the creative collaboration processes involved in the development of the project. Ellen Wiles has already led several series of creative workshops that involve listening to audiences’ own perspectives on the water system, reading water-themed texts, and exploring approaches to increasing its resilience for the preservation of human and more-than-human life and wellbeing through creative writing and mapping exercises. These workshops have involved water industry executives and professionals, scientists, and members of the public. Ellen has also delivered several talks and stakeholder events, including through a walking talk for Agile Rabbit. If you are interested in an event or workshop for your organisation, please get in touch.

The Storying Water project will have a range of creative outputs extending beyond audio, and spanning a range of forms and media. A key work is a new immersive installation, Springs and Seepages, created by Ellen Wiles and Arun Sood in collaboration with Emma Molony as a response to the unique ecology of the Otterhead Lakes nature reserve. The installation features a sound piece weaving in field recordings, poetic fragments and music recorded in situ, alongside video, visual works on canvas and sculpture. It has been created as the centrepiece of a joint exhibition, Shifting Waterscapes, at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Jan-Feb 2026, which will feature previous works by Wiles exploring watery ecologies. Another key event is Ripple Effects, a performance showcase produced by Wiles in partnership with the Northcott Theatre on a theme of water system resilience in Feb 2026.