Măgura and its riverscape: a sense of self, place and time Rivers can transform the local and wider landscape on a temporary or permanent basis. They do this by erosion and movement of soil and sediment around river catchments during floods, and through depositions in new forms such as bars and islands. These landforms are not only aesthetically pleasing but can also be analysed and interpreted to reveal how and when they were created, thereby providing an environmental history. Rivers produce a palimpsest of 'marks' in the landscape commonly in the form of abandoned channels (palaeochannels) that display a wide variety of geometrical shapes and patterns. These can be 'read' using aerial photographs, satellite images, Google Earth, old maps as well as on the land surface using GPS and field walking. Their 4D (space-time) relationships can also be deciphered by analysing and dating sediment, wood, bones and artefacts that infill these abandoned river courses. These materials record and preserve changes in the landscape resulting from both human activity and climate-related changes in flooding regime.
One very important and potentially controvertial issue that the Măgura intervention addresses is how its inhabitants who live adjacent to and use the Clanita and Teleorman river valleys for farming and water, perceived change in the river landscape and the factors that control it. A 4-day workshop was run from 17th to 20th July in
Măgura School involving 40 children and their teachers. The participatory activities that were used to explore these issues and to create a shared cross-generation experience fall within the disciplines of Art (Land Art and Fine Art), Archaeology, Geomorphology, and History and required some translation of the spoken and written word in both Romanian and English.
The project had three primary objectives. First, to inspire in the children a sense of self, set in a particular place and time. Second, to research and to develop with them a greater awareness of the local riverscape and rural environment highlighting links with pre history and human response to environmental damage. Third, the design and production of a series of small mosaic tiles (20cm x20cm) based on this theme using modern and ancient found objects. The mosaics evidence not only the time spent with the children but also a shared river experience with the workshop leaders (JM and MGM) and the school.