Creative Approaches to Flood Awareness

The Burnie Journey

“Art and song have been the carrying stream of community knowledge for generations, detailing all sorts of stories, and many of them contain messages about the warnings and risks that can be useful to help build today’s flood risk aware, resilient communities.”
Paul Laidlaw, Community Resilience Manager, Scottish Flood Forum

Over winter 2018-19, Creative Carbon Scotland was commissioned by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to pilot a creative engagement project in Aberdeen exploring how the arts could be used to raise levels of flood awareness and preparedness in flood risk communities.

The pilot took place in the Denburn Valley in Aberdeen where the local council has been installing a number of flood protection schemes to improve climate resilience in the city. Unlike traditional forms of public engagement, this project sought the skills and expertise of a creative practitioner to design and facilitate a number of engagement workshops on flooding and local flood risk management on behalf of SEPA.

Local musician, Simon Gall, was appointed by the project team to lead the design and delivery of the creative workshops with local community groups, including Fernielea Primary School’s P6 class.

There are a number of different ways to learn more about the Burnie Journey project; all of which can be accessed below.

Watch the project videos, read the project report and evaluation report or listen to the podcast interview with key members of the project team.

Project process: Taking a Creative Approach to Flood Awareness

Music video: The Burnie Journey

For the project report, evaluation report, podcast and further videos visit SEPA’s Floodline website.

We hope this project inspires others to adopt a similar approach for future public engagement activities, particularly with hard to reach groups. It is one of a number of initiatives supported by Creative Carbon Scotland which connect artists with organisations working on issues including carbon reduction, climate adaptation and climate justice through our culture/SHIFT programme. 

For further information on the project or culture/SHIFT more generally, please contact gemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com