PhD Journey 10. A little psychogeography
At the end of April I attended More-than-human mappings — Livingmaps Network Conference at Senate House in Bloomsbury. Just over the road from Russell Square…
A little out my comfort zone I nevertheless found the presentations stimulating and fascinating. A sense of democratising cartography. From Sasha Engelmann’s Mapping Planetary Weather to Joanna Boehnert’s Mapping Ecologies of Mind via The Ruptured Yazidi Atlas and the unfolding story around the attempt at mapping the River Poddle in Dublin.
Not on the list of speakers was Rupert Tallan’s brief introduction to the Missing Maps project and Mapping Land Voices. I love the idea of an audio/visual map containing peoples stories connected to specific locations…
I also enjoyed going out into Russell Square for Lissie Carlile’s More-Than-Human Entanglement Mapping workshop where I introduced myself to the London plane.
I went along to Ambika 3 to experience the last day of Serpentine’s Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: The British East India Company on Trial installation and the launch of the CICC School — Book Launch: Decolonizing Knowledge edited by Radha D’Souza and Sunera Thobani.
“Non-human agents will act as evidence and witnesses in the court, in this case in the form of plants that played a pivotal role in the colonial and industrial projects of the British Crown and the East India Company. The audience present will have the task to act as public jury members.”
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The court hearings can be witnessed below …
Putting the East India Company on trial is a long time coming!
I spent an afternoon walking … around Bloomsbury, down to Cleopatra’s Needle, back up to Soho… as I wander and witness the countless statues that dot this wealthy and poverty stricken city I cant help but feel the hubris and self importance of colonial white men in every step … what we celebrate is the xenophobic subjugation of countless cultures and the appropriation of wealth by the few. What we celebrate must be torn down.
I was back in Coventry before the month was out to present How Plants Shape Worlds at RCAD25 (The Research Capacity and Development Conference).
I find the opportunity to present really fine tunes what it is I’m actually researching! I think it went well …
… and last but not least some new library books.
