University of Nottingham
  

On-the-go: Mobilities, settlement and performance (workshops)

Project outline

Movement and settlement define our lives and fashion our identity. On-the-Go workshops were dedicated to expanding our local landscapes of habit in imaginative ways, building larger environments of knowledge through sensory experiences sampled from a global menu, and arriving at the imagined geographies of our desire.

On the go On the go
 
 

Achievements

This series of workshops brought together participants from a range of disciplines (participants were drawn from thirteen different academic disciplines and also included practicing artists) and research practices to examine the intersections of mobility and landscape, particularly through performance (dance, drama, music and film). The four workshops were centred around the following themes: 'Landscape, Mobility, Performance', 'Layerings and Memories: the landscapes of mobility at Heathrow' (a site-specific event engaging with the newly opened Terminal 5 and associated archaeological work completed during the terminal’s construction), 'On-the-go', and 'Geography and Music: Interdisciplinarity, Landscape and Environment'.

Project activities have advanced thinking in an area of wide academic and public concern, that of increased mobility and the fate of place in the modern world. There has been a recognition that mobility involves more than movement, with landscape and environment acting to both anchor and power movement. Movement is often central to the experience of landscape via both the movement of humans and the landscape itself, and performative engagement with the landscape provides a powerful range of methods for exploring landscape and mobility.

Ongoing influence

An application was made to the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator scheme in 2009 for a project on 'Place and Mobility in the Twenty-First Century'. This research will develop the network's concern with mobility and settlement in the context of four 'world cities', and proposes to pair social and landscape researchers with creative practitioners (two of which participated in 'On-the-go') in each of the four case study sites.

A funding application for a network on urban natures, interventions and performances was unsuccessful but unfunded collaborative work with urban interventionist groups like City Mine[d] have taken place.

Early career researchers have been supported and inspired by the workshop series. Discussions helped to stimulate an ESRC funded post-doctoral workshop on 'Peripatetic Practices' held at Royal Holloway University of London in April 2008. There have been two postdoctoral fellowship applications arising from the workshop activities and one undergraduate participant subsequently gained ESRC 1+3 funding for masters and PhD research focused on performance arts and landscape, drawing on insights gained from attending the first workshop.

In addition the research has developed existing institutional efforts at fostering links between landscape studies and music.

Workshops

  1. Landscape, Mobility, Performance
  2. Layerings and Memories: the landscapes of mobility at Heathrow
  3. On-the-go
  4. Geography and Music: Interdisciplinarity, Landscape and Environment
 

Award details

Duration:
January 2006 - September 2008 (21 months) 

Principal Investigator:
Professor Philip Crang

Higher Education Institution:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London

Selected publications

Rogers, A. (2010). The Need for Practical Workshops. Area. 42 (1): 127-131

 

Landscape and Environment Programme

School of Geography
University Park
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

telephone: +44 (0) 115 84 66071
email: landscape@nottingham.ac.uk