Workshop on AIR
- Event type
- Seminar
- Series
- Out of Practice Seminar (Oops)
- Address
- Room 243, Second Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
- Speakers
- Drew Milne (University of Cambridge ), Robert Hampson (Royal Holloway, University of London), Agnieszka Studzinska (Independent)
- Event dates
- Contact
- IESEvents@sas.ac.uk Email only
This workshop aims to explore the boundaries of practice-based research and the creative critical. It consists of two parts: a practice-based research project and a performance lecture.
AIR
In the first part, Professor Robert Hampson and Dr Agnieszka Studzinska will present their current collaborative, practice-based project on air. This takes the form of a sequence of poems, written over a six-month period, in an open-ended dialogue where each new poem represented the participant’s response to the most recent work of the other. The sequence undertakes an exploration of air as matter, air and environmental pollution, air and the body, and so on. It is an interdisciplinary project which draws (among other things) on the history of air pollution in London, physiology, medical geography, the physics of the air, and the poetics of breath. The sequence will be presented as a practice-based research project,
The Biotarians of Air: before and after Ruskin
In the second part, Professor Drew Milne will offer a critical homage to John Ruskin's lecture, 'The Queen of the Air', given in University College in London, 1869. This performance lecture will explore the significance of Ruskin's stormclouds of the nineteenth century and his intimations of the importance of Athena for thinking about air. Ruskin's discussions of myth, poetics and modern painting offer evidence of ecological attention to air, its relation to clouds and the history of photosynthesis, with attendant recognition of the air filtering significance of moss and lichens. Rewilding Ruskin for a twenty-first century lichenised poetics involves new attunements to solidarity with the nature of air, and this lecture will consider the music and songs of air that could now be recognised as coming before and after Ruskin. From ancient lyres to modern airs, from photosynthesis to digital synthesis, there is trouble ahead, but there may be music and moonlight and dancing.
Professor Drew Milne is the Judith E. Wilson Professor of Poetics, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge. His collected poems, In Darkest Capital was published by Carcanet in 2017. Subsequent publications include Earthworks (2018), Cutting Carbons i(2019), Lichens in Antarctica (2019) and Saturation Net Zero. (2022). His essay in poetics 'Notes on Lichen' appeared in Textual Practice (2019).
Professor Robert Hampson is Professor emeritus at Royal Holloway, University of London. His recent publications include a critical biography, Joseph Conrad (Reaktion, 2020); two co-edited collections, The Reception of Joseph Conrad in Europe (Bloomsbury, 2022) and Joseph Conrad’s Cultural Legacy (Bloomsbury 2024); a monograph, Joseph Conrad, Cosmopolitanism and Transnationalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024); and the poetry volume, Covodes 1-19 (Artery Editions, 2021).
Dr Agnieszka Studzinska has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a practice-based doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her first debut collection, Snow Calling was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her second collection, What Things Are was published by Eyewear Publishing (2014). Her third collection, Branches of a House was published by Shearsman Books in 2021.
Unless stated otherwise, all our events are free of charge and anyone interested in the topic is welcome to attend. Registration is required for all events.
