Returns residency Day 6 - Hanley Walk with Maps

For 1 week, a group of artists ( Christine Stevens, Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee and Danica Maier) formerly working on a previous project in the city (Topographies of the Obsolete, 2013) based at the Spode factory site - have returned to Stoke to pick up some pieces ahead of a short exhibition with us in Autumn 2018. 

Having completed making the big pot Christine and I moved on to the business of packaging and storage in advance of it being collected for firing. We assembled the components with which to build a crate around it and found a temporary spot to store it in.

I then went on a walk around Hanley to follow up on previous exploration, using the Godfrey 1877 and 1898 Ordnance Survey maps as guides and imaginative prompts. I followed the routes of old tram and railway lines and investigated the wasteland that now occupies the area of former terraced streets west of York Street. This is the preliminary stage of the composition of a soundwalk that I intend to compose for the Returns exhibition at Airspace in late November/early December.

- Andrew Brown

Returns Residency Day 5 - The radical middle

For 1 week, a group of artists ( Christine Stevens, Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee and Danica Maier) formerly working on a previous project in the city (Topographies of the Obsolete, 2013) based at the Spode factory site - have returned to Stoke to pick up some pieces ahead of a short exhibition with us in Autumn 2018. 



The Radical Middle 

It’s day 5 of the residency. This week I have been reviewing the many hundreds of photographs I’ve made on my previous visits to the area, as well as continuing to walk and take the bus across the Six Towns, exploring areas that are less familiar to me.

I’ve begun to understand what I’m doing now relates to an earlier project, The good place that is no place, which considered ideas of utopia, home and belonging, viewed from the very different perspectives of high rise flats in two towns on the English coast, Brighton and Grimsby.

Having thought about the edge of England, the Returns project in Stoke-on-Trent has allowed me to focus on the view from the middle, and to consider the idea of an English heartland which is definitively not that of the Home Counties. 

As a result, I’ve been exploring Staffordshire’s intersecting traditions of non-conformist religion, radical politics and trade unionism; the idealistic projects that took root here such as the Worker’s Educational Association and societies promoting the universal language of Esperanto; the escapism of hedonistic club cultures; old myths and new age spirituality; energy and entropy; the names streets are given and what they signify; public transport and poor housing; community, refuge and sanctuary. There’s something here about repeated attempts to create a heaven on earth, or at the very least to make lives better lived.

- Joanne Lee

 

Returns Residency Day 4 - Keeping Going

For 1 week, a group of artists ( Christine Stevens, Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee and Danica Maier) formerly working on a previous project in the city (Topographies of the Obsolete, 2013) based at the Spode factory site - have returned to Stoke to pick up some pieces ahead of a short exhibition with us in Autumn 2018. 

Not so many visitors today to help with making the pot, so a more contemplative time. However, Khayal from Kurdistan joined me for several hours, and by the end of the afternoon the pot had developed a very distinctive shape and the beginnings of a throat. We had little common language between us, but we communicated very well through touching and handling the clay as we worked on the pot together.
- Christine Stevens 

Returns Residency Day 3 - Testing, trying and playing

For 1 week, a group of artists (Christine Stevens, Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee and Danica Maier) formerly working on a previous project in the city (Topographies of the Obsolete, 2013) based at the Spode factory site - have returned to Stoke to pick up some pieces ahead of a short exhibition with us in Autumn 2018.

Day 3 -  Testing, trying and playing

 

Day three of the residency sees a number of tests, samples, experiments and scribbles.  Working with collected ceramics from Stoke on Trent (a lot of it Spode) I’m figuring out ways of combining the 3d objects with 2d drawings; possible wall paintings; interactions and connections of objects and food. 

Ideas are slowly emerging and the Centre of the Cosmos was found here in Stoke on Trent!

- Danica Maier

The Brownfield Research Centre: The Brownfield Library

Underpinning our Brownfield activities are this set of over 70 books, comprising theory - art and ecology - , classification, philosophy and fiction. We hope to grow the library over the coming years and find a permanent home for it in AirSpace Gallery as a public resource.
We are more than happy to take donations and suggestions, and so if you have either or both, please get in touch with us at mail@airspacegallery.org, with Brownfield Library in the title.

Author	Title	ISBN	Publisher	Year
Max Andrews (ed)	Land Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook	978-0901469571	RSA	2006
Margaret Baker	Discovering the Folklore of Plants	978-0747801788	Shire Publications; 3rd Revised edition edition	2008
Timothy Beatley	Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning	978-1597267151	Island Press; 2nd None ed. edition	2010
Matthew Beaumont (editor)	Restless Cities	978-1844674053	Verso	2010
Iain Borden (Editor)	The City Cultures Reader	978-0415302456	Routledge; 2 edition	2003
Terry Breverton	Breverton's Complete Herbal: A Book of Remarkable Plants and Their Uses	978-0857383365	Quercus; UK ed. edition	2011
Andrew Brown	Art & Ecology Now	978-0500239162	Thames and Hudson Ltd; 01 edition	2014
Edward Chell	Bloom	978-1903338056	Horniman Museum and Gardens	2015
Edward Chell	Soft Estate	978-0953899678	The bluecoat	2013
Rebecca Chesney	Alla Breve	39389141104	Gannet Verlag	2016
Rebecca Chesney	Five Rivers	1900229072	Lancaster City Council	2008
Rebecca Chesney	Hope’s Whisper	39389140608	Gannet Verlag	2012
Rebecca Chesney	I’m Blue You’re Yellow	3938914076	Gannet Verlag	2013
Rebecca Chesney	Snapshot	-	Gannet Verlag	2016
Nicholas Culpeper	Culpeper's Colour Herbal	0-572-01152-0	W Foulsham & Co Ltd	1983 (1837)
J. H Crabtree	Woodland Trees And How To Identify Them	ASIN: B001PQ38TI	The Epworth Press	1938
T. J. Demos (Author), Basia Irland (Author), Beverly Naidus (Author), Ruth Little (Author),	Elemental: 1: An Arts and Ecology Reader	978-0993219207	Gaia Project Press	2016
T. J. Demos	Decolonizing Nature - Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology	978-3956790942	Sternberg Press	2016
Tim Diggles	Objects Natural	-	self	2017
Claire Doherty	Situation (Documents of Contemporary Art)	978-0854881734	Whitechapel Gallery	2009
European Cultural Foundation (editor)	Build The City	978-8364682766	European Cultural Foundation	2015
Michel Fanton	The Seed Saver's Handbook	978-1899233014	Eco-Logic Books	1996
Richard T. T. Forman	Urban Ecology: Science Of Cities	78-0521188241	Cambridge University Press	2014
Lore Gablier (editor)	Communities of Practice Towards Social Change: A journey through the Idea Camp (2014-2017)	978-8365853448	European Cultural Foundation	2018
Matthew Gandey	Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (Urban and Industrial Environments)	978-0262572163	MIT Press	2003
Matthew Gandy	The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination	978-0262533720	MIT Press; Reprint edition	2017
Jan Gehl	Cities for People	978-1597265737	Island Press; 1 edition	2010
Oliver L. Gilbert	The Ecology of Urban Habitats	978-0412455001	Springer; New edition edition	1991
W J Gordon	Our Country's Flowers And How To Know Them	ASIN: B005YL3F8Y	Simpkin
Donna J. Haraway	Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene	978-0822362241	Duke University Press Books	2016
John Hawksford	The Flora of Staffordshire	978-0954938529	Staffordshire WildlifeTrust	2011
Francis George Heath	Our British Trees and How to Know Them	-	Hutchinson & co 5th edition	?
Wolfgang Hensel	Medicinal Plants of Britain and Europe (Black's Nature Guides)	978-1408101544	A & C Black Publishers Ltd; UK ed. edition	2008
Peter Holden	Spotter’s Guide to Birds		Usborne	1978
Justin B. Hollander	Principles of Brownfield Regeneration: Cleanup, Design, and Reuse of Derelict Land	978-1597267236	Island Press; First American Edition edition	2010
Jean Imrie	Wild Flowers of Verges and Waste Land	978-0713616972	A & C Black Publishers Ltd	1977
Jane Jacobs	Vital Little Plans: The short works of Jane Jacobs	978-1780723129	Short Books Ltd	2017
Jeffrey Kastner	Land & Environmental Art (Themes & Movements)	0714845191	Phaidon Press ltd	2005
W. Keble Martin	The Concise British Flora in Colour	978-0718140281	Ebury Press & Michael Joseph; 1st edition	1969
Rebecca Lerner	Dandelion Hunter: Foraging the Urban Wilderness	978-0762780624	The Lyons Press	2013
David McClintock & R.S.R. Fitter	Collins Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers	0002121883	Collins	1971
Lucy McLauchlan	Birmingham Bypass			2016
Richard Mabey	The Perfumier and the Stinkhorn	978-1846684074	Profile Books; 1st edition	2011
Richard Mabey	Nature Cure	978-0099531821	Vintage	2008
Richard Mabey	Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants	978-1846680816	Profile Books; Main edition	2012
Jekka McVicar	Seeds	978-1856267830	Kyle Cathie; revised edition	2008
Joel Meyerowitz	Joel Meyerowitz: Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks	978-1597111225	Aperture; 1 edition	2009
Edward Milner	Trees of Britain and Ireland	978-0565092955	Natural History Museum; First Edition edition	2011
George Monbiot	Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life	978-0141975580	Penguin	2014
Deepa Naik (Editor)	Critical Cities: Ideas, Knowledge and Agitation from Emerging Urbanists: 1	978-0956353900	Myrdle Court Press; 1st edition	2009
B. E Nicholson	The Oxford book of wild flowers	ASIN: B0000CKT2B	Oxford University press	1960
Diane Norman & Michelle Cornell	Ikebana	978-1840912470	Conran	2002
Roger Phillips	Grasses, Ferns, Mosses and Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland	978-0330259590	Pan Books; First Edition edition	1980
Sheila Pickles	The Complete Language of Flowers	978-1862051546	Pavilion Books; New edition	1998
Charles Quick, Elainer Speight (editors)	Subplots to a City	978-0993049804	In Certain Places	2014
John Rensten	The Edible City: A Year of Wild Food	978-0752266138	Boxtree	2016
Richard Reynolds	On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening without Boundaries	978-0747590811	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC	2008
Michael A Richards	Regreening the Built Environment: Nature, Green Space, and Sustainability	978-1138718791	Routledge; 1 edition	2017
Michael Symmons Roberts, Paul Farley	Edgelands	978-0224089029	Jonathan Cape	2011
Jo Schofield	The Wild City Book: Fun Things to do Outdoors in Towns and Cities (Going Wild)	978-0711234888	Frances Lincoln	2014
Anna Chrystal Stephens, Glen Stoker	A Sick Logic	978-1899926046	Site Gallery	2016
Glen Stoker	Belonging	-	self	2011
W.J. Stokoe (Editor)	The Observer'S Book Of Wild Animals	ASIN: B0023S39Q4	F.Warne & Co	1965
W.J. Stokoe (Editor)	Observer's Book of Wild Flowers	978-0723215844	F Warne Publishers Ltd; 4th Revised edition edition	1978
Helen Stratford	Flora & Fauna - Field Notes	-	Self	2015
Edward Step	Wayside and Woodland Blossoms First Series	ASIN: B0092MPR14	Frederick Warne; 1st edition	1938
David Streeter	Collins Flower Guide (Britain and Ireland)	978-0007183890	Collins	2010
Nato Thompson	Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011	978-0262017343	MIT Press	2012
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing	The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins	978-0691178325	Princeton University Press;	2015
Martin Walters	Wild Flowers (Collins Gem)	978-0007178544	Collins	2012
R G Warren	Staffordshire Butterflies and Moths	0905080211	Staffordshire Biological Recording Scheme	1983
Esther Woolfson	Field Notes From a Hidden City: An Urban Nature Diary	978-1847082763	Granta	2014