Author: AL Alifuoco

Coming next –the team launches Phase 2 with new ECN+ funding

From microbial drag spectacle to everyday ecological citizenship

Flow.Walk.Drag.Everyday – “pooling parties” popping up where communities pool together – resources, capacities, needs – experimenting with bacterial wisdom. Think: sharing like microbes share genetic material to survive together.

We have completed its first phase with sold-out walking tours led by drag artists performing as microbes across Liverpool L8 and Margate – exploring how Cholera and E. coli respond to water inequality in two coastal communities shaped by migration, exploitation and resistance. The project engaged 1,000+ live participants, with the stinger video reaching 2,696+ views.

Now the audio tours take the experience into new streams and channels. The Liverpool Cholera Audio Tour is out – a four-episode podcast narrated by Cholera itself, tracing bacterial flow through Liverpool’s water histories from the 1831 epidemic and Irish Genocide to the Toxteth Uprising and today’s sewage crisis. Episodes 1 and 2 are live now and Episodes 3 and 4 dropping soon.

Stay on the waves – the Margate E. coli audio tour is coming soon to your ears!

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This week, Flow.Walk.Drag. hit the road to share our weird and wonderful world at the Communicate Conference in Manchester – the UK’s big gathering for people working in science communication.

We were invited by the Ecological Citizen(s) Network+ to be part of their session on ‘Unexpected & Creative Paths to Ecological Citizenship’. And honestly? It doesn’t get more unexpected than microbial drag telling stories about colonial histories and water justice. But that’s exactly why it works!

Dr Annalaura Alifuoco presented our approach – how we use performance, walking and a healthy dose of indigested content to get people thinking differently about their relationship with water, microbes and each other. The conference brought together scientists, artists, educators and communicators from all sorts of backgrounds, and our joyful, queer take on ecological storytelling went down a treat.

The big question we posed: What if the ecological crisis isn’t an informational problem, but a relational one? What if we don’t need more scary facts, but better stories about how we’re all interconnected?

From Irish potato fungus to ‘invasive’ Buddleia plants to the bacteria swimming in Liverpool’s historical waterways – we shared how Flow.Walk.Drag. uses these stranger stories to help people feel their entanglement with the more-than-human world.

Huge thanks to Emily and the ECN+ team for the invitation, and to everyone who stayed to chat afterwards. The conversations were brilliant – proof that when you lead with joy and curiosity, people want to come along for the ride.

More adventures coming soon. Watch this space (and the waterways).

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Curiosity was the steady current inspiring first the workshop in Liverpool L8. From cholera histories to unruly water refusing to follow straight lines, our L8 co-creators brought such rich experiences to our discussions about water access, migration, aging and sewage systems.

Thanks @rebeesnaps for capturing these moments!