Flood Response: Too much of Water

Earlier this year Armley Mills ran an Exhibition entitled ‘Flood Response’ displaying a powerful selection of photos and stories gathered from the community affected by the 2015 ‘Boxing Day’ Floods in Leeds. As we’ll all be aware the floods hit large numbers of properties both residential and commercial and as Armley Mills itself was partly submerged under 8 feet of water it seemed like the fitting location for this exhibition.

The curator who created this exhibition ‘Christopher Sharp’ has agreed to come and present an overview of his exhibition including photos and anecdotes from those affected to our members and alongside this ‘Professor Steve Bottoms’ who created a performance piece used for the exhibition entitled ‘Too Much of Water’ will also be attending to perform this for us.

Learning objectives
By the end of this lecture, delegates will be able to:
- Experience the reality and the human perspective for those involved in what we may see as an insurable peril
- Understand how the community came together and some of what clean up process was involved.
- Look at the similarity between this flood and floods from the past but how the response was different.
- Get an insight into what caused such an issue in 2015 (why did the water rise and fall so quickly?)

Speaker's Biography
Chris Sharp is Assistant Community Curator at the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills and Thwaite Mills. Having worked at the Leeds Industrial Museum for around 18 months the ‘Flood Response’ exhibition was Chris’ 1st Major exhibition at this site. Prior to working at Armley Mills Chris was based at Abbey House Museum next to Kirkstall Abbey.

Professor Stephen Bottoms who will be performing ‘Too Much of Water’ for us is ‘Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance’ at the University of Manchester. Prior to being based in Manchester Stephen was a Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies for 7 years at the University of Leeds. He has a specific interest in developing performances in contexts of environmental change which led to the creation of ‘Too much water’ and a further series ‘After the Flood’.