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THE|SANDS|OF|DEE is a project that has thus far taken a number of forms, including 'The Cestrian Book of the Dead': a necrogeographic map of historical sites of drowning on the Dee Estuary, located between England and North Wales. The digital mappings that have resulted from research into the historical geography of the Dee have also prompted more site-specific engagements in and throughout the estuary itself: forms of cultural archaeology or ‘deep topography’ that are part of wider research into liminality, landscape and cultural memory.
> For more information on The Sands of Dee click here
> To read/navigate The Cestrian Book of the Dead map click here, or 'found poem' of the same name here
> To view The Sands of Dee photo gallery click here
CONCRETE|ISLAND Re-energised by my belated discovery of J.G. Ballard's 1974 novel of the same name, Concrete Island was a project initially conceived while driving past a motorway island on the M53: a place - or non-place - I had skirted on countless occasions on my way to and from Liverpool. Struck by the size, and what I would later discover to be the anomolous and abandoned earthworks of a slip road that went nowhere, my curiosity was piqued, and I resolved to explore its uncharted terrain. Embracing its solitude, the plan is to throw myself at its rhythms, textures and intoxicating mundanity for 24 hours, during which time I will glean sounds, images and whatever a hopefully mindful disposition lets drift into view. All to be sifted through and re-assembled - for ends as yet uncertain - at a later date.
> Further details to follow shortly.
** August project update - see blog post
THE|ARCHIVE|CITY Research carried out in 2006-2010 as part of the City in Film and Mapping the City in Film projects took on a number of forms. Many hours were spent in film archives mining spatial and other data from over a century of films made in and about Liverpool. This was eventually developed into an online city film catalogue for the purposes of general enquiry and for conducting more fine-grained cine-spatial analysis. Many more hours, weeks and months were spent virtually navigating the city's cinematic geographies as part of efforts to build and develop a detailed GIS film map of Liverpool and Merseyside. Although staring goggle-eyed at innumerable films or poring over historical OS maps were inescapably desk-bound and sedentary activies, the research also involved extensive work in the field, whether in terms of site-specific geo-historical engagement with Liverpool's urban landscape, a photo-mapping of Merseyside's cinema sites, or ethnographic research conducted with members of Merseyside's amateur filmmaking community, whose legacy has been, amongst other things, to lay the solid foundations of the 'archive city'.
> To search the catalogue and find out more about the research, publications and activities click here
> To search and navigate the Merseyside film map click here
MUSIC|PLACE|MEMORY In 2010-2013 I was a researcher on the European collaborative research project Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity (POPID). Fieldwork on the project fell into two phases. The first involved interviews with professionals working in the music, heritage and tourism industries, archives and museums, journalists and historians. The second was conducted amongst individuals and audiences in different parts of England to explore the role of popular music in narratives of place, identity and cultural memory. Both research phases were aimed at shedding greater insights into the meanings, ideas and practices that underpin what might be understood by the term popular music 'heritage'; the relationship between music, memory and place; the importance of routes and journeys in the production and consumption of musical memories; and the role of maps and mapping practices in historiographies of popular cultural memory.
> For more information on the POPID research visit the European POPID website
> To view the documentary short 'Pop Goes Heritage' click here
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