What is the 'Waste' in Wasteland?
Published: 16 October 2023
Join University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art for the first in a new interdisciplinary seminar series around Wastelands and the City.
Date: Tuesday, 28 November 2023 **in person**
Time: 3 - 5pm
Location: 237C, Advanced Research Centre, 11 Chapel Lane, University of Glasgow
Wastelands speak to us as “waiting lands” (to borrow from the German term die Brachen) – but what are they saying to us? What knowledges, skills and practices do we need to engage with them? What kind of futures could wastelands have in the city (of Glasgow and beyond)? Often seen as dormant, useless or derelict land, wastelands are also places of nature and social life. They are sites of risk and play; non-design and regulation; property rights and trespass; contamination and renewal. Wastelands are, then, places of paradox, which lay bare the complex actualities of cities whilst also suggesting alternatives ways of making them. Glasgow – still – has a large number of wasteland sites and these offer us the occasion to explore ongoing practices, histories and futures.
The University of Glasgow & Glasgow School of Art Seminar Series, Wastelands and the City, will bring together ecologists, planners, social scientists, activists, archaeologists, artists and others to think dynamically and openly about the possibilities afforded by such sites as well as to reveal the engagements already taking place in Glasgow and other cities.
Our inaugural seminar, What is the ‘waste’ in the wasteland?, unpacks the idea of 'waste' to reveal both its multiple meanings and deeply contested character. Our three speakers provide diverse perspectives on wastelands, drawing on contemporary and historical cases in Glasgow and beyond, to engage with the complex economic, ecological and social concepts and practices through which these spaces of the city are commonly defined and how they can be understood anew.
For full speakers and timings, see booking link above.
This seminar series is organised by Ross Beveridge (ross.beveridge@glasgow.ac.uk) and Susan Brind (s.brind@gsa.ac.uk) and supported by the University of Glasgow Challenges in Changing Cities Interdisciplinary Research Theme and the Glasgow School of Art Reading Landscape group. Further seminars and events will take place in Spring and Summer 2024, details to be announced in due course.
First published: 16 October 2023
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