One of the pressures and pleasures of being an early career researcher and the ECR Network representative for the School of Architecture and Design is balancing the leadership implied by the latter and the need to continue doing actual research demanded by the former. Two recent events illustrate this, for me, exciting tension.
Last month as part of my ECR rep. role I organised, and then co-curated with Dr. Sam Lynch an exhibition of research by those in the SoAD part of our Network. Partly a celebration of the work of talented colleagues, partly a way of testing and framing some practice-based (but far from only practice-based) work as research, the extreme variety of work lent itself to a form of curation which wilfully juxtaposed sometimes dramatically different types of work.
Struggling to think of a name for what was essentially a themeless exhibition, where an architectural model might sit beside a transformed and animated archaeological Harris Matrix, beside a vitrine of books and journals, beside a disassembled camera obscura, I was reminded of something Julia Kristeva wrote in 1998, “interdisciplinarity was a site of great enthusiasm” she began, “but after a while we started to realise that as a site of encounter amongst various forms of practices, it constituted a very difficult, if not perilous, enterprise.” This, for me, was not as negative as it sounded but instead seeded the idea for an opportunity to make connections across the disparate disciplines of my School. Her phrase site of encounter stuck and became the name of the exhibition. You can see more here: https://scandalousartefacts.com/2019/05/08/sites-of-encounter/
Tara Dean (Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise) and Annie Ockelford (ECR Ambassador) at the opening of the Sites of Encounter Exhibition.
Last week was the first meeting of Wastes and Strays: the past present and future of English urban commons a 3-year AHRC funded research project of which I am, dauntingly, the co-investigator for the ‘future’ work package.
There are research partners from Newcastle University, Natural England, the Open Space Society and a host of others. Everyone came. It was intense and exhilarating and I can’t wait to get properly stuck in to the research itself. It’s early days and the project website is being built but in the meantime you can find out a little more about the project here: https://scandalousartefacts.com/2018/08/20/wastes-and-strays-the-past-present-and-future-of-english-urban-commons/
Written by Dr Alessandro Zambelli, ECR Representative for the School of Architecture and Design. You can find out more about Alex in the podcast he recorded for the University: https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/the-hub/Pages/Podcast-Catching-up-with-Dr-Alex-Zambelli.aspx
