Changing Landscapes - Postgraduate Conference

We live in a world of numerous and constantly changing landscapes, from the social to the ecological. The ways in which these landscapes are changing, or have changed, impact us in a variety of ways.

Programme

10:00 – 10:20 – Arrivals, Introductions, Housekeeping rules and welcome addresses by Head of School & Head of PG 

Panel 1: Landscapes in Social and Historical Contexts

• 10:20 – 10:25 – Panel Chair’s opening remarks
• 10:25 – 10:40 – Niamh Lawlor – Avebury neolithic stone circle and modern interpretations
• 10:40 – 10:55 – Jasmine Kular-Whittingham – Expressions of Post-War West German identity...
• 10:55 – 11:10 – Katie Blair – From Saints and Bronzes to Solidarity and Resistance and back again…
• 11:10 – 11:25 – Haoyi Ruan (Howie) – Navigating the Digital Landscape… 

11:25 – 11:40 – Coffee/Tea Break

Panel 2: Representations of Ecological Landscapes in Art, Image, and Text

• 11:40 – 11:45 – Panel Chair’s opening remarks
• 11:45 – 12:00 – Rebecca Smith – Sounds and Silence in the work of George Morland (1763-1804)
• 12:00 – 12:15 – Ellie Norton – Gender Norms in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 Barbie
• 12:15 – 12:30 – Israel Eweka – Seascape and escape in Kossi Efoui’s work...
• 12:30 – 12:45 – Gitanjali Patel – Towards a transformative pedagogical praxis in language education…
• 12:45 – 13:00 – Chen-yuan David Chuang – Brushing Climate Change…

13:00 – 14:00 – Lunch Break

Panel 3: Landscape Narratives of the Anthropocene

• 14:00 – 14:05 – Panel Chair’s opening remarks
• 14:05 – 14:20 – Graeme Dyck – Glacial Vibrations in the Anthropocene
• 14:20 – 14:35 – James Hughes – The Limits of Representationalism: The Narrative Landscape in the Anthropocene
• 14:35 – 14:50 – Arthur Wotton – ‘Todos nosotros somos petróleo’…
• 14:50 – 15:05 – Rong Qi – Beyond Organic: Bioart and Biomedia in the Anthropocene

15:05 –15:15 – Short Break

15:15 –16:00 – Keynote speaker: Darya Tsymbalyuk 

Darya Tsymbalyuk writes, researches, and draws. She is interested in stories about more-than-human worlds we live in and in looking for the possibilities to tell these stories in a way that is attentive to other-than-human beings. Darya received her PhD from the University of St Andrews (Scotland) in 2021, and since then has held visiting fellowships at IWM, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, St Anthony's College, University of Oxford, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and New Europe College, Bucharest.  She is currently finishing a book manuscript about the environmental impacts of Russia's war on Ukraine, forthcoming with Polity.

Darya will focus on the environmental aspects of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the changing meanings of environments damaged by violence. Working with shattered contexts of the ongoing war, where the work is structured by urgency, Darya turns to artistic research and public engagement to tell environmental stories, reach diverse audiences beyond academia, and intervene into cultural and public debates. She also believes that visual exploration is specifically conducive for the inclusion of non-verbal stories, such as plant stories, which are at the centre of her research. During the talk, Darya will share examples of her visual work and reflect on the thinking processes at the heart of these artistic research engagements.

16:00 – Closing/Departures 

The conference will be a hybrid event held on the 1st May, on site at the University of Birmingham (Strathcona LT1 (G18)) as well as online. The event will run all day, from 10:00 until 16:30 with scheduled breaks.

Zoom link

Image: Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) - Lovers in a Landscape (The Turtle Doves), Barber Institute of Fine Arts