A few thoughts on Anselm, Wim Wenders’ 3D film about the artist Anselm Kiefer, which I saw as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Spoiler alert: infuriation ahead!
I am not a sociologist, but…
International Sociology Association World Congress 2023 is done! ✅ 👤 Between the Crown entertainment complex and the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention centre, 3000 sociologists 👤 floated around in non-places, in atriums and rooms so vast and out-of-scale 👤 that they made it very hard to connect with colleagues. 👤 Sparse bodies in soulless spaces. [Project …
“Interviewing walls” paper at the ISA World Congress 2023
I am speaking tomorrow at the International Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne! The title of my talk is “Interviewing walls? Lesson and methods from urban surfaces” and it draws from years of thinking what this wall interview method might mean, and how it can draw us closer to the meanings of urban …
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Postdoc appointment at the University of Melbourne
I have recently been appointed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Cities and Urbanism at Melbourne Uni. The position is affiliated with the School of Culture of Communication, Faculty of Arts, and I sit within the wonderful Centre for Cities. Melbourne is my new home now and I hope to produce exciting research from here …
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Visual Studies journal cover
Images like this are like a pluri-vocal whisper reminding me of the energy of urban togetherness, in all its messy, smelly, disorderly forms. One of my Leake Street photographs has been featured on the cover of the Visual Studies journal (Vol 36, Issue 1, 2021). You can see the cover on their website and read …
Student Choice Awards nomination
Oh so delighted to have been nominated in the Inspiring Teaching Delivery category of this year's Education Awards at UCL. This nomination is particularly meaningful because it has been put forward by students of the Bartlett School of Architecture (it's the Student Choice Award) and because it comes in this online teaching year. Shout-outs to …
Out late and dirty: curfews and the covid city
One of the main losses resulting from covid lockdowns and curfews has been that of rights to disorder, mischief, debauchery, and any number of afterhours activities which take place among people. To respond to the thresholds theme of the new Borderland journal, I propose to inhabit the time-space of curfews and lockdowns, and confront their moral authority through …
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Winter Walls of India
“Power, Paint and Public Walls” was my six-day endeavour with Sprya Sharma and 25 students from CEPT University in Ahmedabad, India. Taught online under an intensive "winter school" format, the course aimed to develop a multidisciplinary reading of contemporary cities by examining walls, surfaces, graffiti, street art, advertising and other types of wall writing. The …
ABC News Radio feature
I was excited and pleased to speak to Eric Mollo of ABC News Radio about the social value of street art, as part of the programme "Celebrating the arts". Eric prepared a short segment on "Street art as a symbol of unity", reflecting on the many murals and other forms of memorialisation on public walls …