Watershed is a collaborative exploration of the River Trent landscape, bringing together artists, practitioners, researchers and local communities to understand the watershed not simply as a geographical boundary, but as a living network of relationships.

Beginning locally in the West Midlands, the project follows water from source to outlet, exploring the rivers, streams, springs, wetlands, farms, towns, canals, reservoirs, woodlands and floodplains that make up the catchment. Along the way, we encounter the people who know and shape these places: farmers, anglers, conservationists, historians, artists, workers and residents, each holding different forms of knowledge, memory and experience.

Rather than producing another ecological survey, Watershed seeks to create a polyphonic portrait of a river system—mapping not only its ecology, but its stories, practices, histories, relationships and responsibilities.

By collaborating across disciplines and institutions, the project asks what a watershed can teach us about how people belong to, understand and care for landscape.