Porthluney, South Coast Cornwall, has the UK’s lowest bathing water quality in 2024 due to intestinal enterococci in the Caerhays stream from sewage, slurry, and agricultural runoff. Regulated by the Environmental Agency, water quality is monitored through periodic sampling and annual classifications, meanwhile, locals and visitors continue to bathe and swim unaware of water conditions.

Current management practices work in permit data and discrete samples, translated into data-driven projections rather than physical interventions and manifestations. Friends & Fables fosters awareness and engagement in the discourse of water systems through intersectional methodologies and devices, inspired by deep ecological principles for consideration of interconnected entities of more-than-human actors and agents.