Still Waters Run Deep

Still Waters Run Deep is  a new commission for Light Up Lancaster, supported by Lancaster University Impact Accelerator Account Programme, with funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council. 

Lancaster City Council’s climate change team has supported this installation as part of the council’s commitment to raising awareness of climate change.

The artwork blends art and science, uniting illustrator Faith To, sound artist Amber Hooton, glaciologist Diego Moral Pombo, and creative director/animator James Hooton. The project reveals glaciers’ hidden movement and quiet power.

James Hooton – Animator and Technical Artist

I’m an animator and technical artist with expertise in projection mapping, interactive storytelling, and immersive media. My work transforms architecture into dynamic canvases. Starting as a filmmaker, I evolved into creating non-linear, participatory experiences. Light Up Lancaster challenged my skills, marking my first project with full artistic control. I aimed to create a complete, exciting experience.

My interpretation visualised glacial change over impossible timeframes, making imperceptible movement rhythmic and emotional. Transforming Lancaster Castle into a living, fluid entity bridged art, science, and emotion. The core idea is that stillness is just motion on a different timescale. With Faith’s animation and Amber’s sound, we gave rhythm to the unseen, making the castle’s stone a glacier’s skin and light its pulse, turning stillness into movement.

I hope to advance my practice of using technology to communicate natural processes and emotion architecturally, fusing technical innovation with storytelling to create felt experiences.

Diego Moral Pombo – Senior research associate in ice-sheet geodes, Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University

I’m Diego Moral Pombo, a scientist at Lancaster University studying unseen hidden lakes beneath Greenland’s ice sheet using satellite data. These lakes, sometimes millennia old, drain to cause massive floods, dramatically speeding up glacier flow.

This research matters because it predicts our future. The Greenland Ice Sheet could raise global sea levels by over 7 meters if melted. Understanding subglacial lakes is crucial for forecasting ice sheet mass loss and its impact on coastal communities.

Why turn science into art? Art effectively communicates science, challenging misconceptions that ice sheets are static. I wanted to share the hidden beauty and urgency of these remote changes and their impending impact.

My hope: you’ll leave seeing ice as dynamic, beautiful, and deeply connected to our futures.

Learn more about the GLOBE Project and watch the subglacial flood video at https://cpom.org.uk/events/lightuplancaster/

Faith To (Illustration)

I’m a multidisciplinary performance designer and maker from Hong Kong, and Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) graduate in Theatre and Performance Design. My practice lies at the intersection of storytelling and pushing at the boundaries of how we experience and interpret the world.

Artistic Style: Watercolour’s fluid nature mirrored glaciers’ slow movement, creating a sense of subtle motion. It embodied the paradox of stillness and motion. As the project evolved, we began to weave in more textured layers, and small, tactile interruptions that act as clues.

Challenges: Not being a scientist, I translated James’s interpretation of Diego’s findings. Visualising the unseen world beneath the ice, even by researchers, was challenging. Yet, there was a kind of beauty in that uncertainty. I came to enjoy shaping the unseen.

What I Have Achieved: This project was my first experience creating imagery for architectural projection, deepening my understanding of how image, light, and scale reshape space. I aim to continue developing this language, painting on the world.

Amber Hooton (Music Composition)

I’m a multimedia audio designer and composer, with roots in British brass banding and an MA from the University of Liverpool. My music blends orchestral grandeur with intimacy, influenced by orchestral and videogame scores.

Orchestral instrumentation naturally suited the themes. Suspended strings created peaceful, swelling harmonies, while mallets and woodwinds twinkled. Vast harmonies and rhythmic ostinati, with percussion like crashing waves, captured the glacial environment. The score incorporated live-recorded glacial sounds.

Reflection: Collaborating with James again on projection mapping, I deepened my understanding of the natural world, telling its story through music, down to its subtlest details.

Lancaster Council

Significance of the story: Still Waters Run Deep highlights that climate change impacts everyone, including Lancaster and Morecambe Bay. Understanding these changes and preparing is crucial for a thriving future.

Why is understanding climate change and flooding important? Millions of UK homes and businesses are at flood risk, with projections showing significant increases in exposed populations and billions in annual damage costs. Flooding impacts health, so preparation is vital.

You can check flood risk, sign up for warnings, make a flood plan/kit, discuss climate change with youth, and make your home flood resilient. Visit the Flood Hub (https://thefloodhub.co.uk/) for resources.

Climate change is already impacting the UK, and we must act now. Learn more here.

Why was it important for us to be involved? Lancaster City Council ensures services and assets are resilient to climate change. We also plan for future homes, businesses, and infrastructure to be climate-resilient, securing a thriving district.

To find out more about what the council is doing, visit: https://www.lancaster.gov.uk/.