Cancer Alley is an immersive poetry film project which features environmental destruction in ‘Cancer Alley’, Louisiana, the heart of the Global petrochemical industry. The project draws attention for the need for multi-national companies to take more responsibility for their impact on the environment and the growing public awareness of how people’s lives are affected by extreme pollution. The project highlights the experiences of those who live in the polluted areas. We have chosen immersive poetry film as the medium to share this message due to its direct way of expressing ideas and emotions. Although there is no pollution in the UK as extreme as Cancer Alley we want the project to act as warning of what could happen if development expands without sufficient monitoring and firm legislation. The message of the project is a call for action as the viewer is encouraged to remember our duty to protect the natural world, our connection with all living beings and how fragile are our landscapes.
Poet Lucy English worked with two acclaimed US filmmakers, Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran, and Simon Luscombe from Holotronica thttps://www.holotronica.com/ to develop an existing poetry film into an immersive installation with 360 degree projections and hologram technology. The project uses a double (front and back) projection with a ‘hologauze’ screen. Film images are projected onto a flat screen, while lines from the accompanying poem, in addition to visual effects such as smoke, light and rotating objects, are superimposed on a silver, translucent hologauze to give the viewer an impression of depth. The film, lasts around 9 minutes and is shown on a continuous loop.

The project was launched at The Watershed, Bristol during the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival 2024 from 18-21 April and was available to the public on a continuous screening in a darkened room. Cancer Alley was funded by a Bath Spa University/AHRC Impact Acceleration Award to investigate the impact of an immersive poetry film project on those who currently engage with poetry film as a creative medium. These include poets, poetry filmmakers, poetry audiences, poetry promoters and researchers into VR literature.
A pre-selected focus group of poets, filmmakers and audience members were invited to view the project, chart their reactions and to discuss their findings and other audience members were interviewed informally after viewing the project. These interviews and discussions were conducted and analysed by impact researcher Dion Dobrzynski. The impact evaluation report of the project is now shared on the Cancer Alley website. (canceralleyproject.com)

The original poetry film of Cancer Alley was created by Lucy English in collaboration with US filmmakers Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran of Outlier Moving Pictures who create short films for independent and experimental cinema. This film has won many awards in short film, poetry and eco-film festivals. https://www.outliermovingpictures.com/home Jack Cochran and Pamela Falkenberg have been filming and taking static images in this region for the last two years and built up a considerable portfolio of footage which was used in the creation of this project.

The poetry for the project was written by Lucy English and was inspired by the accounts of those living in the region and also by the words of Manari Ushigua Santi, the indigenous leader and forest protector of the Sapara Nation of the Equadorian rainforest. https://weareavalon.love/the-family/manari-ushigua-santi
We are currently looking at further funding to screen the project in other venues.