Flow – Be The River
Photo by @elljaybris
As part of our Confluence programme, we’ve been thinking about how artists move through, respond to, and shape the changing city. One idea has stayed with us throughout: flow.
When we first chatted to Iman Sultan West about her contribution to Confluence, Kate gave her a simple prompt: be the river. Be the river flowing between the artists in this residency. Be the river that carries ideas and experiences from one encounter to the next.
It’s a metaphor that has stayed with us – one that feels deeply connected to the texture of Bristol. The flow of people through a place. The flow of time. The shifting shape of the city itself. And of course, the flow of water – always nearby, sometimes hidden, sometimes rushing past, shaping the landscape and our histories in proud and shameful ways.
These days, the river draws us towards it to socialise and relax, where it was once a site of industry and work. Its tides and rhythms echo the passing of time; something we’ve thought about a lot during this programme.
Moving through the city
Flow has become a way of understanding how artists – and all of us – move through the city.
Last week we walked in silence with Howl Yuan through Castle Park, a site full of energy and movement that holds layers of loss beneath its surface. Howl’s work zooms out, connecting Bristol to global stories of displacement, migration, and memory. What does home mean? Where do we settle – and where do we keep moving? How are our lives shaped by the people and places we’ve come from?
We heard stories of the city from behind the wheel of a taxi with Dhaqan Collective’s The People’s Carriage – stories of backstreets, shortcuts, and hidden routes. Taxi drivers as informal historians, finding the flow of the city in ways the rest of us might never notice.
Ramelle Williams and Fenton Fleming’s Fragments of Us, now in its final stages, explores flow through dance – bodies in motion, rhythm, breath, energy. It’s a work that reframes how we might read the city, offering new ways to feel and move through public space.
Flow as resistance and force
And of course, flow doesn’t always mean drifting. It can be fierce, powerful, and determined. We’ve always believed in placing performance where it might disrupt the rhythm of daily life – where it might carve out new paths. Our collaborations with Dan Canham – Of Riders and Running Horses and SESSION – both did that in different ways, inviting people to move, gather, and feel together in the city.
Cities are shaped by how people move through them – by what is allowed to flow, and what is blocked. Flow can be about freedom, but also about obstruction, resistance, and finding another way through.
An invitation
So here’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves, and one we’d like to ask you:
How do you flow through the city?
What shapes your movement – your rhythm, your routes, your routines? And as the city changes, are you being carried along or carving your own way through?
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