Critical Ecologies is an opportunity for academic and non-academic staff to come together and share research in alliance with communities and ecologies.
We have two exciting keynote presentations, and space for 6 presenters from within the University to share their research. In creating this fledgling research hub we are acknowledging the need for an open and respectful space where we can build (and rebuild) an interdisciplinary research culture. We also aim to centre nature recovery and environmental justice within these interdisciplinary conversations.
Visiting Speaker – Prof. Joost Van Loon – Historical Materialism and Actor Network-Theory 31 October 18:00 Online For a link, contact Patrick O’Connor
Research Seminar Series – Life Matters: Thought, Nature and Technology
You are invited to Staffordshire Philosophy’s research seminar series. This time Prof. Joost van Loon from Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt will be joining us online for an MS Teams event to discuss his paper “Historical Materialism and Actor Network Theory.” The paper is available at the bottom of this message.
Paper: ““Historical Materialism and Actor Network Theory.”
Abstract: “Those who invoke the term new materialism mainly do so because they want to distinguish it from materialism-as-we-know-it, or better, from materialism-as-we-thought-we-knew-it. This materialism usually goes by the name of Marxism. However, I prefer to use historical materialism as this is the term that Marx and Engels themselves used to describe their approach. By contrast, ANT is itself working with an already established tradition whose roots go back via Deleuze (1994) and Whitehead (1978) to Tarde (2009), Nietzsche (1992), Leibniz and Spinoza (2004), I am implying a wider philosophical trajectory than those usually invoked by sociologists when dealing with ANT…”
Bio: Prof. Joost van Loon is the Chair of General Sociology and Sociological Theory from Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. His research is concerned with theoretical engagements with social and cultural processes with a specific focus on media and technology. Professor van Loon is editor-in-chief of a great journal called Space and Culture and his publications include the monographs Risk and Technological Culture (2002) and Media Technology: Critical Perspectives (2008). He has also published several articles.
Please note Joost has supplied a copy of his paper so please read in advance. Bring your questions, queries and comments with you, and we can explore the themes of the Joost’s paper together. The session will comprise a short interview with Joost and I. Then we will take questions from the floor. Asking consent here to record event.
Please contact Patrick O’Connor if you would like an invite to the meeting or if you are having trouble accessing the paper.
In connection with his exhibition Obsolescence and Renewal, Professor Neil Brownsword will present a lecture about his artistic practice.
In connection with his exhibition Obsolescence and Renewal, Professor Neil Brownsword will present a lecture about his artistic practice. For nearly three decades Brownsword has explored marginalised histories associated with ceramic manufacture in North Staffordshire, focusing primarily on the impact of globalisation in recent decades upon people, place and traditional skills.
His reactivation of endangered industrial crafts has achieved impact internationally via curated projects and cross-cultural exchange. Brownsword’s work raises questions surrounding the value and contemporary relevance of intergenerational skills and obscure regional histories, and how these can be re-imagined into new narratives and modes of expression that reinforce place identity.
About the speaker
Neil Brownsword is an artist, researcher, educator and Professor of Ceramics at Staffordshire University. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1995, his work has gained national and international acclaim. It is represented in public collections internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Korea Ceramic Foundation and Yingee Ceramic Museum Taiwan.
He has received various accolades for his creativity and contribution to contemporary ceramic practice, including the inaugural British Ceramic Biennial Award (2009), the Grand Prize at the 2015 Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale, South Korea, and the Whitegold International Ceramic Award (2019).
Led by one of our C3 Centre members, Agata Lulkowska, a new third season in the Rebellious Research Seminar Series (previously known as art/practice based-research seminar series) is now published and available to download and share.
It runs on a last Wednesday of each month starting in October, via MS Teams, at 3:30-5pm UK time.
More details and the programme can be found in the links below or the downloadable PDF.
C3 Centre members will be presenting on various sessions at the upcoming Research, Innovation and Enterprise Conference on 24th and 24th of May 2023, this week.
It is still time to sign up for free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/staffordshire-university-research-innovation-and-enterprise-conference-23-tickets-522644542897
Key events include a session on getting to know the C3 Centre, with a panel including:
NoiseFloor is an electronic music composition and performance creative conference, with a mixture of concerts and papers, embracing practice as research with some excellent keynote speakers.
Factory is delivering a number of events coming up. Do feel free to share this info on with others you think might be interested.
FACTORY is an ERDF funded project, delivered in collaboration with the Chamber, BCB, and Staffordshire University. It supports innovation-led-practices for the SME Creative Industries in Stoke-on-Trent. Our partner organisation BCB has also a webpage dedicated to FACTORY available here
Factory Seminar – A Beginners Guide to Funding and Grant Applications (In-person)
The BCB Artist Development Surgeries are an opportunity to talk about a project or idea that has a connection to Stoke-on-Trent, its people, place or industries. This opportunity is for people feel they would benefit from speaking about it with a member of the BCB Artistic Programme/Exhibitions team.
Following the and popular first round of the Art/Practice-based research seminar series (and a Special Issue on Recontextualising Practice-based Research which followed), the seminar series, hosted by C3 Centre Agata Lulkowska, returns with a new title and some truly exquisite guests. As always, free and open to all (all sessions run online via MS Teams), this initiative aims at widening support and understanding around practice research in a friendly and inclusive manner, with some top experts sharing their experience and advice.
As part of the London Craft Week 2022, the Korea Association of Art and Design returns for London Craft Week 2022 with a panel of experts in the area of ceramics, glass and crafts.
The virtual event will take place 9 May 2022, at 11:00 AM . Professor Brownsword will give a talk on:
Thinking through the Past for the Future: Neil Brownsword, Artist, Researcher, Professor, Department of Ceramics, Staffordshire University, UK
Throughout history, ceramics have played an important role in the phenomenon of cultural transfer. For centuries China, Korea and Japan have influenced each other’s aesthetics, practices and technologies. Subsequent trade with the West, and the imitation and assimilation of East Asian goods and styles in the late 17th and 18th centuries greatly influenced the development of new ceramic traditions in Europe that were to gain historical prominence.
Since 2015 artist Neil Brownsword has explored this historic cycle of knowledge exchange, via performances staged in South Korea and the UK which have addressed the cultural hierarchies and value systems aligned to their ceramic traditions.In his work Factory (2017) staged at Icheon World Ceramic Centre, Brownsword re-choreographed the indigenous ceramic practices of two ex-factory personnel from Stoke-on-Trent and four Korean artisans to question established hierarchies of cultural production and reassign value to people and practices displaced by global economics.
By reactivating obsolescence via non-commercialised production, Brownsword revealed a shared language of haptic intelligences developed through ethical modes of exchange between East and West.
Performing FACTORYin Korea enabled the actors of marginalised immaterial heritage to renegotiate their value in a context where similar embodiments of knowledge are culturally protected. Its tour to the British Ceramics Biennial 2017, furthered UK/Korea cultural exchange, strengthening Stoke-on-Trent’s regeneration ambition as a global centre for ceramics. This presentation examines the context and development of Brownsword’s collaborations and his exploration of heritage as a ‘living process’ that can be constantly reimagined for the future.
Neil Brownsword is an artist, researcher and educator who holds a professorial position in ceramics at Staffordshire University. Brownsword began his career in ceramics as an apprentice at the Wedgwood factory in the mid- 1980’s. His practice examines the legacy of globalisation in relation to Stoke-on-Trent’s ceramic manufacturing sector, and the impact this has had upon people, place and traditional skills. Using film and performative installation Brownsword deconstructs complex craft knowledge within industrial production to pose questions surrounding the value of inter-generational skill. His work is represented in public/private collections internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Korea Ceramic Foundation, Yingee Ceramic Museum Taiwan and Fu Le International Ceramic Art Museum China. In 2009 he was awarded the ‘One Off Award’ at the inaugural British Ceramic Biennial, and the Grand Prize at the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale, South Korea in 2015, and Whitegold International Ceramic Prize in 2019.
Associate Professor and C3 Centre member Rob Marsden’s text ‘Inside the Rehearsal Room‘ is now out, published by Bloomsbury/ Methuen Drama.
Book launch at Wednesday 2nd March at 6.30 at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. RSVP to r.j.marsden@staffs.ac.uk email
Inside the Rehearsal Roomis both an instructional and conceptual examination of the rehearsal process.
Drawing on professional practice and underpinned by theory, this book moves through each stage of rehearsals, considering the inter-connectivity between the actor, director, designers and the backstage team, and how the cumulative effect of the weeks in rehearsal influences the final production. The text also includes: – Auto-ethnographic and fully ethno-graphic case study approaches to different rehearsal rooms – Interviews with directors, actors, designers and actor trainers – A consideration of the ethics of the rehearsal room and material selected for production – Practical exercises on how to creatively read a text from an acting and directing perspective.
Informed by over 20 years of directing experience in the UK and Europe, Robert Marsden’s book offers a practical guide that ultimately demystifies the rehearsal process and challenges how the rehearsal room should be run in the 21st Century.
Interviews include with Rufus Norris, Kate Wasserberg, Kirstie Davis, Ivo van Hove, Roy Alexander Weise, Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Steven Boden, RC-Annie, Katrina Lindsay, Paule Constable, Stephen Mear and many more…
