I have been trying to work out a way to represent the movements of farmed and wild salmon in Scotland and was really reassured and excited when I came across Aaron Koblin's flight paths visualisation yesterday - what he has done with flights is what I'd love to do with fish!
I'm a Human Geography PhD student in the UK (University of Southampton) looking at salmon farming in Scotland (and globally). I'm sponsored by Sainsbury's (a major UK supermarket) and am closely involved with Marine Harvest (the largest salmon aquaculture corporation in the world). I'm also working with the RSPCA (the UK's biggest animal welfare NGO) and Cefas (the UK government's dept. for fisheries and aquaculture science). Before starting my PhD 6 months ago I worked in PR/Marketing (including web design project management) for 5 years and so I'm hoping to develop an online communications tool which could be used to stimulate and to clarify the debate around salmon aquaculture (in terms of marine sustainability and farmed salmon welfare) as part of my PhD.
I was an artist in the past, before moving on to a career in Marketing/PR and then a Geography PhD, so I'm particularly keen to produce a data/media visualisation which expresses the beauty of salmon - I think fish provide an opportunity to do something very striking visually.
Unfortunately I don't have the required data manipulation/web design skills required to do this, or the £ to pay someone who has these skills, but I'm very keen to develop a mutually beneficial partnership with someone, perhaps an online journalist to investigate this further. In terms of data, there are a number of exciting avenues to investigate through those involved in my PhD. RE the audience for this project, as marine sustainability and salmon aquaculture are very high profile issues (though farmed salmon welfare is not) I would expect this to have broad appeal.
Is this something you might be interested in? If not, is there anyone you'd recommend I contact?
Please let me know if you'd like any more information.
Happy NY!
Thanks,
Julia
Julia Walker
School of Geography, University of Southampton
mob: 07796615018
