Anna Clough, Rebecca Scott Rome Resident at the BSR from January to March 2026, shares in this blog her reflections on her residency experience and the research she is carrying out.
‘It is much better to think of the present as an artefact of the sliding of the past against future like trains at a junction. I call this sliding nowness.’ 1
During my time in Rome, I have been focusing on sculptural and sound work.
Throughout the residency, I have been spending time at the Tiber River, which has been flooding, washing clay onto the paths that run along it. At points, the silt completely covers the path with a thick layer, all the way from the bamboo-studded banks to the shoreline. In Rome, the recycling of history is present on every street corner, ideas and materials losing their chronology. The past becomes mystified, much like the paths parallel to the Tiber – where not even the efficient technology of Lime Bikes can get through!
Occasionally, when walking, I come across debris abandoned by the current; logs, stones, leaves, man-made litter. To cross, I hop onto this material. It provides a make-shift stepping-stones, guiding me. Beyond creating a path, it signals where the river has been, an organic archive of the past. But to me, it also shows signs of what may come next, like futures are read in the patterns of stranded tea leaves. Debris can tell stories. This is what I read on the banks of the Tiber.
‘The proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things.’2
I climb up onto the bank to collect dry bamboo leaves. Bamboo is new to Rome and doesn’t grow from seed; instead, it self-reproduces. Underneath the ground, its roots form a large network spreading outwards, digesting rotting leaves, mud and crisp packets, springing up new shoots as it goes.
I can’t define whether the bamboo is decaying or growing. The plant is expanding in every direction across the bank; nothing is standing in its way. I can’t tell where it starts or finishes, whether it’s an old stem or a new one.
‘…time was not passing…it was turning in a circle…’3
One day soon, it will reach the bridge. I wonder what will happen when its roots meet the stone; perhaps it will force its way through the materials’ weak points. It will wait until the lights turn green and cross over the road. I imagine it would carry a comb to keep its leaves in order.
I cannot truly understand how the Bamboo communicates its living. Perhaps its voice is silent or uses a language I cannot comprehend. But I can trust it has an inherent obligation to grow, to die, and to make music whilst doing it.
I’ve read that Orpheus’s music was so fantastical that stones and trees would dance to it. He falls in love with Eurydice, who dies when bitten by a snake. Hades, the god of the Underworld, makes a deal with Orpheus that she can come back. The deal is: Eurydice must walk behind Orpheus until they return to the mortal surface, and he must trust that she is there, without looking back at her.
Robbed of his sight, he can only listen to the body-less music of her voice. Without a tangible connection to Eurydice, he becomes afraid. When they near the end of their journey, despite her words of reassurance, he looks back for her.
Behind me, there is a Canoeist speeding along the Tiber. A Nutria sits on the bank opposite, chewing disappointedly. She comments on the Willow branches, so old that they taste of vinegar and history.
‘Too bland this, and half rotten, I can’t stomach another day chewing that!’ She whistles through her tangerine-stained teeth.
The Canoeist hears this, and in his own way, feels sorry for her.Remembering his tasty pre-training banana, he turns back. He kindly offers her his wooden vanished ore to gnaw on instead.
She gobbles it in one bite.
‘Oi!’ Croaks the Willow, with the billow-honk voice of an old accordion, ‘you’ll put me out of a job I’ve been feeding Nutria since before you were born!’
The Canoeist apologises and glides away.
Meanwhile, the Nutria is admires how shiny her orange teeth have become.
- You Never Know How the Past Will Turn Out, Timothy Morton, 2019.
- The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, 1986.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez, 1967.
