BACKGROUND: This is the signature documentary of a broader creative research project on the history and ecology of Norman Creek in inner city Brisbane, funded by Brisbane City Council. It forms part of the emerging field of exhibition-focused documentary, consistent with Andrea Witcomb's (2004) argument that digital media are central to the proliferation of exhibiting institutions in the 21st Century. It contributes to the field of environmentally focused social history and asks what the history of an urban place looks like when viewed from the perspective of waterways rather than land. It demonstrates Yi Fu Tuan's classic aphorism (1977) that Space plus History equals Place and in its various screening contexts demonstrates Bourriaud's (1998) relational aesthetics.

CONTRIBUTION: As personal documentary disappears from Australian public television and history gets taught to dwindling cohorts in formal education, this work innovatively finds new audiences and venues for audio-visual histories and documentaries. This work is based on substantial primary research, in a context where extant local histories ignore creek industries, inhabitants and stories. Alongside its companion work/s it explores new forms of parallel narrative.

SIGNIFICANCE: Its major sites of exhibition have been at events at the State Library of Queensland (Talking Water 2013); at Crane Arts, Philadelphia US; at the International River Symposium 2013 and online (Waterwheel 2013 - International Symposium on Water and Water arts) and the website of the Norman Creek Catchment Coordination Committee. This documentary's success at connecting with various public - both community and professional - underpinned a successful pitch to the Museum of Brisbane for a substantial in situ exhibition season (forthcoming June 2015).