An Itinerant Woman

An Itinerant Woman’ is a fleeting moment in time exploring the reasons why people have chosen to live on the canal, more specifically independent itinerant female boaters and how this lifestyle impacts their wellbeing. 

I worked with my transient neighbour, whom I recently met at Lock 64 on the Kennet and Avon Canal.  She has been living aboard a 35ft x 6ft narrowboat for the past ten years. 

Creating a visual and audio dialogue between two women, her and myself, I explored the importance of space, home and living life as an itinerant boater on the fringes of society. We discussed what brought and keeps her here, how living on the canal contributes to her mental health and how she relates to the wider community and living landscape. 

Using only photographic stills, my photographic practice combines colour digital documentary, still life, painting with light, pinhole photography, and constructed imagery to create an experimental ‘poetic realism’, overlaid with sounds recorded by myself along the waterways, interspersed with our voices. 

My aim was to capture the transient ‘flotsam and jetsam’ of nature and canal life combined with the anonymous essence of the individuals.