Laura Bissell (Athenaeum Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and David Overend (Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh) have worked together since 2010 as Making Routesexploring performance and journeys. They teamed up with oceanographer Neil Banas and marine eco-system modeller Emma Tyldesley (University of Strathclyde), freshwater ecologist Colin Bull, composer Matthew Whiteside, and artist and performer Marie-Chantal Hamrock in 2023 to form the Waterways Collective: a Scotland-based art-science collaboration, interested in following Atlantic salmon and their migrations into local landscapes, distant seascapes, multi-species histories, and possible futures. The group initiated an annual cycle of field research, collaborative writing and art-making, and public performance, with a journey along the River Spey in May 2024 (funded by Edinburgh Futures Institute, the University of Strathclyde and the Atlantic Salmon Trust) and in June 2025 we continued our fieldwork at Cromarty (supported by an RCS Athenaeum Engagement Award). Aislinn Borland and Alex Winter (University of Strathclyde) joined the collective.

We worked for a week in residence at The old Brewery at Cromarty Arts Trust and then on the final day held a four-hour Open House event for the local community to engage with a range of activities including viewing plankton through microscopes, crafts such as zine and collage making and haiku writing, a film screening of Flowing, Falling, Following, a live performance on the beach, a library and discussion. In working with Cromarty Arts Trust we were able to connect with their audience as well as the community of Cromarty including locals who had a deep family history and memory of salmon, salmon geneticists, social scientists and participants from other local wildlife organisations.

Examples of impact from this research residency and engagement Open House include: A publication in Contemporary Theatre Review’s special issue on Theatre on Unexpected Places, an upcoming online panel discussion as part of the Living Maps seminar series and a poster presentation to into the Mutual currents: exploring Art–Science partnerships for ocean engagement session of the international Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow the 22^nd-27^th February 2026. Previous engagement activity from the first cycle of Waterways was a large-scale performance called Entanglements: Studies in Falling, Flowing Following to an audience of 200 at the Edinburgh Futures Institute in November 2024.

You can keep up to date with the Waterways Collective here