David Bramwell’s The Cult of Water & Vera Zakharov’s Riverine Resurrections: A history and celebration of the Irrepressible Waterways of Sussex

The Cult of Water David Bramwell

Combining music, animation and archive film with a captivating monologue, David Bramwell takes audiences on a dreamy candle-lit journey, in search of the supernatural secrets of our rivers, and a drowned village which has long haunted his memories.

Aided by a witch and the magician-author Alan Moore, Bramwell travels back in time to unearth the myths and rituals of our rivers, and their symbolic association with feminine power.

Can he face his demons and unravel the symbolic mysteries of our ancient ancestors? Who is the mysterious Vulcan? And will there be a pie and a pint waiting for him at the end of it all?

Riverine Resurrections: A history and celebration of the irrepressible waterways of Sussex (30mins)

Whatever happened to Sore and Ūsa, those Sussex sisters who untwined themselves from the lower Weald and snaked down to the sea? They’re still here, cut up and shackled but slowly reclaiming and revealing their old selves.

Humans have an ambivalent relationship with waterways, perceived as nourishers of the body and soul, and yet demonised (much like the deities associated with them) and used and abused as the sewers of humankind.

Vera Zakharov takes a personal, cartographic and queer ecological journey along the abstracted and re-emerging waterways of the local area to discover what nature can teach us of our own liberation.

In June’s Catalyst author Dan Richards talked about our relationship to the night and what it’s like being stuck on a mountain with your dad at 3am and thinking that your time is up; Charlotte Ellis set the story straight about accusations from the British press that her granny had once been the lover of a Gestapo officer and a traitor to the cause, and Sussex wildlife expert Steve Homewood shared some of his life-changing moments and how to put animals at ease with our body language.

We return July 9th with wildlife expert and author Mike Unwin, Suzanne Rolfe and a new one from artist Clarrisa Shanahan.

June’s Catalyst was a huge amount of fun! We had two beautiful songs from Jane Bom-Bane, a talk from author Dan Richards about our relationship to the night; Charlotte Ellis set the story straight about accusations from the British press that her granny had once been the lover of a Gestapo officer (and a traitor to the cause), and former creative director of The Guinness Book of Records, Adam Chase, shared the history of what remains the third best-selling book in the world (after the Bible and Koran) and revealed and some of its ‘eye-popping’ weirdest records. And then there was a world-record breaking attempt for the fastest time to eat a Ferrero Rocher without the use of the hands and leaving the wrapper intact. Did they manage it? ​Not ​saying. You had to be there.

We’re back July 10th with marine conservationist Elissa Phillips, Sam Finkle and Jim Burke (a.k.a. Mr B. the Gentleman Rhymer).