A new 32-mile long artwork highlighting the need for flood defences around the UK has been launched in Bristol

© Invisible Dust in association with Creative Catalysts

Hundreds of Bristol residents are taking to the streets of their city to create a new 32-mile long artwork highlighting the need for flood defences around the UK.Launched today (September 9), the project, called HighWaterLine, is the brainchild of artist Eve Mosher, who has been working with communities in cities around the world susceptible to flooding disaster to highlight the dangers of flooding.The project has since been picked up by science-art commissioning agencywho have brought it to Britain for the first time. Organisers say the resulting artwork will be the largest ever commissioned in the UK.Residents from Bristol neighbourhoods will be working together to mark a section of the 32 mile route - starting in the Portway and Cumberland Basin areas of the city - before moving on to show the places that could be underwater if floods hit the area.Bristol has been chosen because it is one of the world’s most vulnerable places to flooding due to its proximity to the Bristol Channel, which at 12.6 metres has one of the world’s second highest tidal ranges. The first is the Bay of Fundy, in Nova Scotia, which has a 15.4 m range.suggests flooding events may become the norm in the UK. The artwork will show the maximum rise of a body of water over Bristol as the result of flooding.Alice Sharp, the Director of Invisible Dust, said she was “extremely proud” to have brought the artwork to the UK, describing Mosher as “one of the most important artists in the world today" in the study of Climate Change.Mosher’s original HighWaterLine public artwork saw the artist mark out a line 10-foot above sea level around the coast of New York City.En route, she engaged inquisitive local people in conversations about flooding, climate change and its potential impacts. When parts of the route were flooded after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, people began to see her artworks as innovative ways to visualise the future impacts of climate change.