Water witch dowsing, also known as water witch nenning, is a traditional method of locating underground water sources using dowsing rods or a pendulum. This practice has been used for centuries across different cultures and is based on the belief that certain individuals, known as water witches or dowsers, have an innate ability to locate water using divining tools. Water witch nenning involves the use of a dowsing rod, which is traditionally made of metal or wood and shaped like the letter "L" or "Y." The dowser holds the rod loosely by the short end and walks slowly over the ground, allowing the long end to move freely. When the rod detects underground water, it is believed to move or twitch, indicating the presence of water below the surface. Another tool commonly used in water witch nenning is a pendulum.
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Feminism arises at the end of declining civilizations and is seen as a luxury mindset, as women heavily rely on the infrastructure and advancements built by men. Following a similar process, the workshop was split into two sections the first with presentations from the organisers and the artists Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, giving context to the session, including a series of responses to the questions raised by Nicolson in the original recordings.
Another tool commonly used in water witch nenning is a pendulum. A pendulum is a weighted object, often a small metal or crystal attached to a string or chain. The dowser holds the pendulum by the chain or string and allows it to swing freely.
Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism
Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. This research project asks what would a (feminist) art history look like if it refused to tell a history of individual artists? And how did the collectivity inherent in much feminist organising in the 1970s and 1980s feed into artistic practice? Thinking through the legacies of consciousness-raising in art, as well as other political group work that intersect with feminist politics, including the peace movement, anti-racist and women of colour activism, and lesbian, gay and transgender activism, Group Work has run seminars and workshops since 2019. Further details can be found here.
The group is led by Dr Catherine Grant (Reader and Vice-Dean for Education, Courtauld Institute of Art), Dr Amy Tobin (Associate Professor in the History of Art, University of Cambridge and Curator, Contemporary Projects, Kettle’s Yard) and Dr Rachel Warriner (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art).
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- Art and Conservation of the Buddhist World
- Morgan Stanley Lates at Somerset House with The Courtauld
- The Asymmetry Distinguished Lecture Series on Contemporary Chinese and Sinophone Art
- Events recordings – Spring 2022
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Charcoal and Chiaroscuro: Frank Auerbach’s Graphic Portraits and Post-war Culture - Call For Papers: Intersections: Entanglements with Medieval and Renaissance Textiles, 1100-1550.
- CFP: Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics
- Call for Papers: A One-day Colloquium on the Cloisters Cross
- Call for Papers: The Itinerant Shrine: Art, History, and the Multiple Geographies of the Holy House of Loreto
- American Art Archives in Britain
- The Ashcan School and Camden Town Group Comparative Project
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- Energies of Attachment: Rethinking Intimacy in Contemporary Chinese and Sinophone Art
- Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism
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- ‘I ride a figurative horse into abstraction’: Harry Dodge’s Consent-not-to-be-a-single-being series
- Gendered Readings of the Earliest Women’s Suffrage Iconoclasm
- (Dis)Embodying the biomolecular sex: The lapse of identity in Jes Fan’s hormone works (2017 – 2018)
- Sex/Gender/Work: Samak Kosem’s Chiang Mai Ethnography (2017-present)
- Eros, Thanatos, and the Throuple: Alfred Gilbert’s Mors Janua Vitae (1908)
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- State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, Isabell Lorey, 2015
- Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre, 2020
- Creators in the get-rich economy: An ‘In Conversation’ with Arnaud Esquerre, Prof Sarah Wilson and Harry Woodlock
- Render visible: on wellness and free markets with Ed Fornieles
- Staying open: Rózsa Farkas on space in the reality of coronavirus
- Live Call, Lydia Ourahmane, 2019
- Faint with Light: Marianna Simnett in conversation with Sarah Wilson
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- A State of Vital Exhaustion, Harry Woodlock, 2020
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- Immediations Postgraduate Journal
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- Archive 2010 – 2015
- Imagining The Apocalypse: Art And The End Times
- Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399
- Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399
- Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias
- Revisiting the Monument: Fifty Years Since Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture
- Picturing the Netherlandish Canon
- Ruskin’s Ecologies: Figures of Relation from Modern Painters to The Storm-Cloud
- Modernist Games: Cézanne and his Card Players
- Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents: Art, Architecture, and Photography since 1950
- Gothic Ivory Sculpture: Content and Context
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- Continuous Page: Scrolls and Scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext
- A Reader in East-Central-European Modernism 1918–1956
2022
Group Work and Chelsea Space are pleased to announce that the publication Responding to Women and Creativity is now available as a pdf and a risograph pamphlet. Responding to Women and Creativity starts with Annabel Nicolson’s work Women and Creativity (1978-80), and compiles responses given to a series of questions about creativity from a number of contemporary artists, writers and curators. The research into Nicolson’s work was the subject of a Group Work workshop at Chelsea Space in March 2021.
Responding to Women and Creativity includes a facsimile copy of Annabel Nicolson’s article “Women Talking”, first published in Feminist Arts News (FAN) in 1982. There is an introduction to the project by Catherine Grant, and a series of responses to the following questions:
What helps your creative work?
What hinders your creative work?
When you read the extracts from Annabel Nicolson’s tapes in the article “Women Talking”, do you see similarities with your own situation in 2021?
Do you think it is still important for women artists and other feminist cultural practitioners to share their strategies for enabling creative practice?
Some of Annabel Nicolson’s respondents discussed whether they needed isolation to work, is this important to you?
Many thanks to those who responded: Louise Ashcroft, Beth Bramich, Lauren Craig, Amy Dickson, Oriana Fox, Melissa Gordon, Catherine Grant, Faye Green, Deniz Johns, Abbe Leigh Fletcher, Helena Reckitt, Selina Robertson and Rachel Warriner.
Copies of the risograph pamphlet are available from Chelsea Space shop
Copies will also be held at the Women’s Art Library, Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, free whilst stocks last.
2021
A workshop organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner from the Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism research network, hosted by Chelsea Space on Thursday 25th March, 2021.
In response to the archival traces of Annabel Nicolson’s “Women and Creativity” tapes (1978-80), the workshop considered the relevance of these recordings for feminist art and writing today. Made by Nicolson in the late 1970s, the tapes document a series of interviews made by women artists, asking them what helped and hindered their creative practice. The recordings were then played in listening sessions, with Nicolson presenting extracts to small audiences.
Following a similar process, the workshop was split into two sections — the first with presentations from the organisers and the artists Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, giving context to the session, including a series of responses to the questions raised by Nicolson in the original recordings.
The second section invited all workshop participants to respond to the questions around women and creativity from their own perspective, with time to work in small groups, and share ideas and experiences.
This workshop was supported by the Association for Art History and Chelsea Space. Dialogues is a programme of events, talks and screenings that will take place online during 2021, as we navigate the altered world around us. Devised in collaboration between Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Spaces, Dialogues will be hosted remotely and connected via Chelsea Space and UAL platforms.
2020
Feminist Curating and Group Exhibitions workshop – 26 June 2020
Groupwork produced three videos with curators Abi Shapiro, Karen Di Franco & Irene Revell and Irene Aristizábal, and Rosie Cooper & Cédric Fauq, in which they discuss the group exhibitions they have worked on.
You can watch these videos on the Group Work Youtube channel
2021
Group Work in the Women’s Art Library – Friday March 6th 2020
We are happy to share the audio of the presentations from this workshop. This workshop was led by Althea Greenan, curator of the Women’s Art Library, along with Lauren Craig and Gina Nembhard. As members of X Marks the Spot, an art and archive research collective, Craig and Nembhard have explored the Women of Colour Index held at the Women’s Art Library, as well as the Jo Spence archive.
Workshop members examined material in the Women’s Art Library and considered how archivists, artists and activists have sought to creatively engage with the collection. The workshop explored questions around how to approach collaborative practice through its archival traces.
The Women’s Art Library is a unique collection of material on women artists, with a growing programme of creative interventions by artists, curators, writers and archivists. It is held in the Special Collections, Goldsmiths Library, Lewisham Way, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW. This workshop was funded by the Association for Art History, the British Art Network and Goldsmiths Art Department Research Support Award. It was organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (University of Cambridge) and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).
2019
Group Work Seminar: Professor Juliet Mitchell in conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon – Thursday 21st November
Professor Juliet Mitchell will discuss “Siblings, Their Heirs and Others on the Social, Horizontal Axis”, presenting a short paper followed by a conversation with Professor Mignon Nixon.
This seminar is part of the research project “Group Work: Contemporary Art and Feminism”, which explores the legacies and histories of group work in art since the 1970s, with a focus on feminist practices. Organised by Catherine Grant (Goldsmiths), Amy Tobin (Cambridge), and Rachel Warriner (Courtauld Institute of Art).
Supported by the Centre for Visual Culture, University of Cambridge.
UN/Common Ritual – Wednesday 29 May 2019
This event focuses on Barbara McCullough’s pioneering short film Water Ritual 1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979) including a screening of the film. Rizvana Bradley (History of Art and African-American Studies, Yale University) will give a presentation on the work, introducing its themes and ideas. This will be followed by a conversation with Amy Tobin (Kettle’s Yard and History of Art, University of Cambridge) which will consider its relationship to feminism, collectivity, and ecology.
This will be the second event of the Group Work Network which considers the ways in which collectivity and collaboration supports practice. It is kindly sponsored by the Centre for American Art, Courtauld Institute of Art. Group Work events are co-organised by Catherine Grant, Amy Tobin and Rachel Warriner.
Feminism emerged due to the Industrial Revolution and technological advancements, leading to an imbalance in gender roles and the rise of bitter and angry women advocating for women's rights, resulting in discrimination against men in education and the takeover of universities by feminist "witches."
The movement of the pendulum is believed to reveal the location of underground water, either by moving in a specific direction or by indicating "yes" or "no" responses to the dowser's questions. Water witch nenning is often criticized by scientific skeptics who argue that it lacks empirical evidence and is based on superstitious beliefs. However, proponents of water witch nenning claim that it has been successful in locating water sources in various regions around the world. In certain regions, such as rural areas with limited access to modern technology, water witch nenning continues to be practiced as a reliable method for finding water sources. Some people even rely solely on dowsing to locate wells or underground springs for their daily water supply. Despite the skepticism surrounding water witch nenning, its popularity and use persist in many parts of the world. Even in areas with advanced technology for water exploration, some individuals and companies still employ water witches to assist in locating underground water sources. The practice of water witch nenning serves as a cultural tradition and a practical solution for those in search of water..
Reviews for "Sacred Springs: Water Witch Nenning and the Power of Sacred Waters"
1. Sarah - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "Water Witch Nenning". The story felt extremely predictable and lacked any real depth. The characters were one-dimensional and I found it hard to connect with any of them. Additionally, the writing style was uninspiring and lacked any sort of creativity. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking for a captivating and engaging read.
2. John - 1 star - "Water Witch Nenning" was a complete letdown for me. The plot was confusing and poorly constructed, making it difficult to follow along. Many events seemed random and lacked proper explanation, leaving me feeling frustrated and unsatisfied. The characters were forgettable and lacked any sort of emotional depth. I struggled to finish this book and would not recommend it to others.
3. Emily - 2 stars - I had high hopes for "Water Witch Nenning", but unfortunately, it fell short. The pacing was all over the place, with moments of intense action followed by long stretches of dullness. The dialogue was often stilted and unrealistic, making it hard to connect with the characters. Additionally, the world-building was lacking, leaving me feeling confused about the story's setting. Overall, I found this book to be underwhelming and not worth the time.
4. Mark - 2 stars - "Water Witch Nenning" had an interesting premise, but it was poorly executed. The writing style was dry and lacked any sort of descriptive imagery, making it hard to visualize the story. The main character lacked development and seemed to have inconsistent motivations throughout the book. The ending also felt rushed and unsatisfying. Overall, I was disappointed with this book and would not recommend it to others.
5. Lisa - 1 star - "Water Witch Nenning" was a struggle to get through. The writing was confusing and overly convoluted, making it hard to understand the events taking place. The characters were flat and unrelatable, causing me to have no emotional investment in the story. The plot lacked cohesion and didn't provide any satisfying resolution. I regretted wasting my time reading this book and would not recommend it.
The Art of Water Scrying: Insights from Water Witch Nenning
- Courtauld Study Day