Bevis Bowden’s latest project Marginalia | song to the river is a film that explores the river and its wildlife in a time of increasing land pressure and climate change.

Through poetry, song and statement this film asks us who we are and how we fit into the dynamic of our surroundings and nature.

The film features the commissioned poem ‘Isis’ written by Penny Boxall with additional contributions from Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente, Jonathan Westaway and Lukas Krone. They discuss the environments lost to climate change, the river as a breathing, moving super organism and the deep sense of obligation astronauts have about conservation on returning to earth.

The music for the film was composed by Alex Smalley and Alex Lucas with the choral elements sung by the Choir of Merton College, Oxford.

Marginalia | song to the river was filmed as part of Merton College’s Creative Arts Fellowship between October 2023 and August 2024 along a section of the Thames upstream from Oxford with additional elements filmed at Merton College, Oxford.

Watch the trailer below:

Marginalia | song to the river will be screened on the following dates:

6th June at the Museum of Natural History, Oxford as part of Climate Justice: Museum Late Night in association with the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit

13th June at the Danielle Arnaud gallery, London

23rd August as part of the Presteigne Festival | Gŵyl Llanandras in the Welsh Marches (where Bevis will also be showing Raising the Hare and a selection of films from ongoing project Observations from Isfryn, both previously featured on Caught by the River).