The Secret Life of Ponds • UCL and Norfolk Ponds Project
2023 | Composer, Sound Designer & Recordist
Poetry, music and freshwater science exploring the declining UK farmland pond and their extraordinary biodiversity.
Photo by Jon Rulton
Devil’s Horse* is an artistic collaboration between poet Amina Atiq and composer/sound designer Alice Boyd, exploring migration in the context of the climate crisis and environmental change.
Amina’s two-stanza poem consists of two distinct sections; a sonnet focussed on pond insect species migration, followed by a free-form verse translating to human disturbance. This poem celebrates the growth of life and enrichment of diversity when it is cared and loved for.
Alice combines her voice, electronic textures and underwater field recordings to reflect the beauty of the pond at its peak in its lifecycle, and the urgency of creating safe refuges in times of hostility.
*Romanian folktales translate ‘dragonfly’ into ‘Devil’s Horse’
Photo by Jon Rulton
Alice Boyd was selected to be part of The Secret Life of Ponds (SLOP), a cohort of six artists working with UCL researchers to find unique connections to the importance of ponds within the context of climate change and nature recovery.
In October 2022, the artists and researchers begun the first stages of restoring a pond, clearing leaf litter and overgrown trees from the water. After this, the group was split into musician and poet duos to produce a creative response to the SLOP.
Through this novel intertwining of the arts and science, the artists present an unforgettable awareness-raising experience interlinking us above and those below the waterline, through the Secret Life of Ponds. Artists are poets Chris Redmond, Madi Maxwell-Libby and Amina Atiq and sound artists Alice Boyd, Tom Fisher and Dot.i. They performed their work at The Grant Museum of Zoology in London and The Forum in Norwich.
Produced by Norfolk Ponds Project in partnership with UCL Culture, Hot Poets and The Nature Recovery Network.