Hidden Wastes in the Anthropocene
Thu 25 Apr 2024 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Verdon Smith Room, Royal Fort House, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1UH
Description
During this day-long workshop, join the Wasting Time project team* to explore “Hidden Wastes in the Anthropocene” through creative walking practices and facilitated discussions. The aim of the workshop is to create an open, interdisciplinary space to explore the broad topic of the Anthropocene from a variety of different perspectives. Contributions from the workshop facilitators and attendees will place the Anthropocene in its geological, historical and social contexts, and encourage innovative ways of making links between these different perspectives. For this workshop, we’ve chosen the topic of ‘Hidden Wastes’, in particular hospital radioactive waste, as a specific (and rarely considered) example of waste and decay in the Anthropocene.
This workshop brings together Mathilde Braddock’s creative practice of educating public audiences on Anthropocene and geological histories through walking in the city, with research by Claire Corkhill (Professor of Mineralogy and Radioactive Waste Management, University of Bristol) on the long future of nuclear waste. In the first half of the workshop, attendees will be invited to participate in a walk with creative practices which will purposefully bring into perspective the multiple temporalities of the Anthropocene in the vicinity of the University campus. After a lunch break, the afternoon session will consist of facilitated discussions to explore the themes brought up during the walk and how these intersect with the research, business and broader interests of the attendees.
*‘Wasting Time: Anthropocene Stories and Practices’ is a research project funded by the Brigstow Institute as part of the 2024 Seedcorn funding which explores how different disciplines and creative practices approach the temporalities of the Anthropocene, and how creative approaches can be used to engage students and publics with the challenges of planetary environmental change.
This is the first of three workshops. The next workshop (May) will explore themes of decay and waste through their counterpoints of collection and preservation, working with curators at Bristol Museum and University of Bristol Special Collections, while the final workshop (June) will bring attendees together to review the experience of the workshops and explore where there might be opportunities for further research, investigation and collaboration. Attendees are warmly encouraged to join all three workshops to engage with the project in more depth.
Detail of the workshop:
For this workshop, Mathilde is designing a walkshop that combines her ‘Steps in Stone’ approach of walking in Bristol, connecting people to their local sense of place and history; and, the ‘Deep Time Walk’ approach that maps the passing of time onto the distance covered (e.g. 4.6 billion years of the Earth’s history translates to 4.6km), with co-production and input from other team members. One of the project outputs is to explore how this model might work as an interdisciplinary teaching initiative that could bring together Humanities and Earth Sciences students productively, in Workshop 3. Claire will be contributing all her knowledge on the environmental and social challenges that nuclear waste management is generating, and how researchers are responding.
Together, Claire and Mathilde are offering a workshop which weaves together the embodied creative practices of the walk with academic knowledge and research questions. The day will explore how we build narrative and tell stories about the past and the future, in our work and lives, in particular to inspire action in a time of planetary environmental change.
The agenda for the day will be roughly as follows:
- 10am -11am ~ Introduction to the project and themes, including tea break
- 11am -12:30pm ~ Walk around campus
- 12:30pm-1:15pm ~ Vegetarian lunch
- 1:15pm-2:45pm ~ Workshop and facilitated discussions
- 2:45pm-3:00pm ~ Close and introduction to next workshop
Location
Verdon Smith Room, Royal Fort House, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1UH