This 20-minute artist film centres on the movement of water, waste and life on Barking & Dagenham’s waterways. Through the lens of shore-dwelling bird life, the film threads together the history, mythology, industry and pollution of the rivers and marshland.

The work was developed alongside a series of encounters with the local community in Barking & Dagenham. Birdwatching collective, Flock Together, guided Faramawy and local POC residents through a series of birdwatching walks; and Ripple Nature Reserve volunteers led the artist through local green spaces and industrial heritage. The experiences of local participants informed the creation of the work, from stories of migration to thoughts on environmental change and crisis. 

These personal fragments are interwoven with myth, heritage and poetry, from the transformation of the Children of Lir from human to bird form; the underground culverting of Barking’s waterways; and the enveloping haze of the Great Smog of London. In the same way, the film describes an interrelatedness of human life, the bird life that surrounds us, and the ecology that enfolds us all. 

Our complicity in environmental destruction has bound us with the landscape and the more-than-human world. As all disappears, what emerges is a sense of a new path forward and the potential of forgiveness. We are intertwined – and as the film posits, perhaps so is our love, our souls, our futures.

On show as part of ‘Adham Faramawy: And these deceitful waters’ at Focal Point Gallery from Wednesday 2 October 2024 to Saturday 4 January 2025.

‘Birds of Sorrow’ was commissioned by Create London as part of Breaking Waves and made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.