Date: Friday 10th – Sunday 13th January 2020
Following the critical excursion Beyond the Heartlands and building on themes of de-industrialisation, landscape and ruin, the ‘Space Place Time’ research collective are calling for participants for a two-day critical excursion to Recar and Cleveland. Completed in 1846, the Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway hoped to attract tourism, but like much of the region, Redcar’s expansion came with the 1850 discovery of iron ore in the Eston area of the Cleveland Hills. The engine of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, Redcar was simultaneously home to a Victorian pleasure pier. The pier’s demolition in 1981 can be seen as an allegory of the decade’s slum, which saw the simultaneous decline of both industries.
Led by researchers Leila Nassereldein (Birkbeck), Nicolas Freeman (Goldsmiths) and Benjin Pollock (Kent), this critical excursion will provide an opportunity to explore the legacies of steel, iron and coal extraction through site-specific visits. We will explore the links between industry, wage labour, leisure and play with a trip to Beacon Bingo. Community spaces of commodification, consumption and socialisation will be thought about in relation to changing socio-political contexts, such as plant mothballing, migration and the widening disjuncture – both economically and ideologically – between the north and the south; between provincial Britain and London, its capital. Throughout the excursion we will work collectively to develop creative and experimental methodologies to help us think about what this unique urban landscape represents, the stories and multi-layered histories it holds, and how we might go about revealing and representing them.
To supplement those listed below, participants will be provided a set of readings in advance of the excursion and will be invited to propose additions to the existing programme of discussions, workshops and exercises. In addition to initiating reading on site, the SPT leads will propose films to screen, including archival footage of the region and relevant clips emergent in popular culture. With a view to collaborate on research output, participants will be mobilised in formation of an SPT zine, following the trip.
Questions for Applicants | Call Response
Briefly outline your PhD/research interests and how these connect to the theme of the excursion?
What is the relationship between the creative and critical strands of your research/practice?
Do you have a driving licence and are you willing to drive a car rental?
Contact: space.place.time@gmail.com
Provisional Programme | Mapping industrial ghosts
On the first day we will explore the region’s uniquely strange industrial history and landscape which remains marked by integrated modernist projects of industrial capitalism. As we move between sites we will share archival images and snippets of texts revolving around themes of temporality, history, and historiography. Industrial sites include Skinningrove, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Lackenby, South-bank, Eston Nab. Town sites include the high street, Regent cinema, seafront, demolished pier and the “vertical pier”.
Recommended Reading | Preliminary Texts
Warren, J. Industrial Teeside’s Biography, in ‘Industrial Teeside, Lives and Legacies: A Post-Industrial Geography’. Palgrave, 2018
Edensor, T. Introduction, in Industrial Ruins Spaces, Aesthetics and Materiality. Berg, 2005
Hudson, R. Producing an Industrial Wasteland: Capital, Labour and the State in North-East England, in ‘The Geography of De-Industrialisation’, Ed. Martin and Rawthorn. Macmillan, 1986
Mollona, M Made in Sheffield An Ethnography of Industrial Work and Politics. Berghahn Books, 2009
Burdsey, D. All White by Me? Dominant Racial Imaginaries and In/visibilities of Whiteness at the English Seaside in ‘Race, Place and the Seaside: Postcards from the Edge’. Palgrave, 2016
Berger, J & Grant, S. Introductory Essay in Killip, C in ‘Flagrante’. Secker & Warburg, 1988.
The event is organised by the Space, Place and Time Research Group. SPT is a collective of doctoral researchers funded by the Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts – South East (CHASE) whose projects explore the concepts of space, place and time. The group aims to foster conversation and collaboration between various disciplines that share this research focus. Our members include both practice and theory-based researchers working across the wide range of fields, including literature, political aesthetics, anthropology, sound studies, visual cultures, theatre, sociology and performance, media and communications, philosophy and history. This trip is not limited to CHASE funded/CHASE affiliate PhD students, staff and academics at CHASE institutions are also welcome to apply.
The event is kindly supported by the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership. CHASE doctoral students are strongly encouraged to sign up and join the event.