Tuesday 31 July 2018

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






Monday 30 July 2018

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





 

Sunday 29 July 2018

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 

Friday 27 July 2018

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






Thursday 26 July 2018

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
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
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
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