THE RIGHT TO THE SURFACE IS THE RIGHT TO THE CITY
I will be teaching a week-long winter course at CEPT University in Ahmedabad, India (well, online) with my colleague Sprya Sharma. Sprya is an architect who has been researching wall drawings in her region (particularly the fascinating Madhubani paintings), and the two of us work with similar wall-reading tools, which we are going to bring …
Continue reading "Power, Paint and Public Walls Winter School"
I wrote a short article for U+I Think, about how to imagine a heritage culture of movement and change, by learning from graffiti. "Having written a PhD on graffiti – my friends call me Dr Wall – one of my most important takeaways is this: colour and beauty are not intrinsically valuable for cities. Yet …
Continue reading "Article on graffiti as living heritage now out"
My Leake Street repeat photography research project has won the International Visual Sociology Association's Prosser Award for outstanding work in visual methodologies. The Prosser award is offered annually to emerging scholars from the social sciences, arts, humanities (and architecture!) and supports the development of qualitative visual research methods. I am very pleased that this project …
Soho / Chinatown It was eerie yet energising to see my favourite part of town all boarded up. There is a hopeful paradox in this state of suspension, as the activity behind the boards has ceased, yet the street is hammered at and activated with intense works, the kind of which I have never seen …
Continue reading "Covid surfaces. Public walls in lockdown London (2)"
Highbury/ Stoke Newington / Dalston / Brick Lane Leave it to city surfaces to tell the stories of our times, even during lockdown. This is an ever-so-limited perspective of a city that seems far and is dearly missed, but remains accessible in a compressed, guarded, hyperlocal iteration. First block of photos is from seven weeks …
Continue reading "Covid surfaces. Public walls in lockdown London (1)"
I did a talk on the Greek Academic Asylum Law as part of the Bartlett picket line teach-outs on 10 March 2020. The teach-outs have been taking place during the most recent national UCU "four fights" strike, which concerns workloads, casualisation, pensions and pay inequalities. The Academic Asylum Law in Greece was introduced in 1982 …
Continue reading "Strike teach-out: Greek Academic Asylum Law"
I wrote this text to reflect on my workload in Higher Education, seven weeks into Term 1 of 2019-20. I hope friends in similar situations add their voice, while friends in better situations and students become fully aware of the following example (here, mine). If nothing more, getting this down on paper was a meaningful …
Continue reading "I adore my work, yet I consider quitting every day: this is teaching"
Join me in Manchester on 12 and 13 October 2019 for a free weekend of talks, street projects, workshops and film screenings on city life and its appropriations. I will be hosting the programme of talks for the weekend, with a bunch of great people who think about and do things in cities. From the …
Continue reading "Social Surfaces +0161"
I am taking part in the Nuart festival of public art in Aberdeen between 18-21 April 2019. My talk is part of the Nuart Plus series that complements the artworks produced during the festival. The title is "Mended Matter and Layered Politics – The Challenges of Researching Urban Surfaces" - and the content will cover …
Continue reading "Mended Matter and Layered Politics: Talk at Nuart Aberdeen 2019"
