Back to the River – Totally Thames Festival 2017

Back to the River was a project conceived by Raewyn and Thames archaeologist Mike Webber in collaboration with the Thames Festival Trust and was funded by Heritage Lottery. Over the summer of 2017, the project brought local people in Southwark together through a series of workshops using archaeology and ceramics to explore the rich history of Bankside.

The culmination of the project was a one-day event on 9th September on the foreshore in front of Tate Modern.  Timber posts from the remains of a Tudor causeway were used as the markers to map out an ancient access point to the river. Clay casts of artefacts created in the workshops were laid out and members of the public were invited to make new casts to place on to the causeway before the tide came in.

Over four thousand casts completed the installation. They were washed away by the tide in reference to the tradition of placing ritual offerings into the river Thames. The unfired clay merged with Thames mud leaving no remains of the installation by the following day.

 

A Thames Foreshore for Walthamstow – Walthamstow Garden Party 2016/2017

As part of the Barbican’s 2016 Walthamstow Garden Party, Raewyn delivered a project with Thames archaeologist Mike Webber inviting members of the public to make clay casts from artefacts found on the Thames Foreshore. Over 1800 people took part in the 2-day installation in front of the William Morris Gallery, each person adding their cast to create a 15 metre long scaled version of the river Thames.

A large number of the clay casts were bisque fired and offered back to the public the following year in the 2017 Walthamstow Garden Party.