Eleanor Mulhearn is a visual artist and storyteller, whose multidisciplinary practice spans illustration, animation, sculpture, and installation. Drawing inspiration from materials discovered in archives, libraries, museums and places, her work explores fragile, overlooked, and diverse histories, stories, and ecologies.

Through engagement with these spaces, Eleanor creates narrative-driven, lyrical works, thematically engaging with the non-material world. Since 2002, Eleanor has collaborated across art, design, and theatre contexts, working with diverse artists and institutions, nationally and internationally, within group and solo projects. Eleanor is Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation, and a researcher, at Manchester School of Art.

“These illustrations tell stories about the River Medlock, a 16km body of water, which may have formed at the earliest from around 1150 BCE. The river runs from Strinesdale, just above Oldham, to its confluence with the Irwell, where they become the Manchester Ship Canal, running to the Mersey Estuary and joining the Irish Sea.”

 

“The Medlock is a neglected, often polluted and frequently hidden river. Approximately 20-23% of its length is culverted and is never seen by most people, particularly in the city centre. But it is also a river which many people care about, work to conserve and has a rich and growing body of stories.”

 

“The images came from intertwining location visits, with histories and myths (old ones and new ones) adding a little more material to the River Medlock’s tales. Each is shot in-camera as a miniature set and except for the paper collages, are made from everyday scrap materials. These materials include ones that come from, or relate to the locations and research, such as plastics, sticks, sand and stones. The images also connect closely here and there with Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight’s evocative poem about the Medlock, as we shared our research and stories whilst responding to this project.”

 

“Mayfield Park was built in 2022. Here, a section of a culvert was removed at the disused, former industrial site, Mayfield Depot. This ‘daylighting’ of the Medlock makes it accessible again and is restoring its ecosystem. Restructuring of the site has led to the river finding some natural meander here. Canada geese, coots and many other birds visit the site. Alluvium carried through the water deposits quantities of sand on its banks.

On 11th April 2025, three small children are playing in the park near the water’s edge and seeing the sand, begin to try to build castles with it, they have forgotten about everything else and don’t hear their parents calling to them to leave the park.”

 

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You can find a pull-out of Eleanor’s Real Contentment artwork in the anthology Rivers of Exchange. There are copies in Manchester Poetry Library and Manchester Central Library or contact us if you’re interested in finding out more about this work.