Conference

Archive - 2019 Conference content

Archive - 2019 Conference

We are delighted to announce that booking has now opened for the multi-disciplinary "Ruination & Decay" conference, which has been organised by the Humanities & Arts Research Cluster (HARC) for the 11th-12th December 2019 at Inverness College UHI.

The conference will feature speakers from across a range of disciplines including Cultural Geography; Archaeology; Performance Studies; Art & Design; Visual Studies; Heritage Studies; History; Literature. There will also be an exhibition of photographs by the artist Sue Mara, and a display of research posters*

The conference fee is set at £15 for the two days, which includes refreshments breaks and the conference dinner on Wednesday 11th December. The conference fee for students is £5.**

To book, please visit the Eventbrite page here

*The call for research posters is still open. Please email Colin Richards at Colin.Richards@uhi.ac.uk with a short (150 word) abstract of your poster by Thursday 28th November.

**We have a small number of discretionary accommodation bursaries to assist with costs for UHI postgraduate students and early career researchers to attend the conference. To apply, please email Colin.Richards@uhi.ac.uk by Monday 28th October with a short (200 word) statement explaining why you would like to attend the conference & offering a brief outline of projected costs to attend (please include details of where you are based).

Please note that some UHI academic partners & subject areas are offering bursaries to support postgraduate students to attend the conference, including the Archaeology Institute, Orkney College & Orkney Archaeological Society (contact Colin.Richards@uhi.ac.uk); and the Centre for History (contact Jim.macpherson@uhi.ac.uk). If you think you may be eligible, please contact them directly to explore this option. Delegates awarded bursaries from these sources are requested not to apply for the R&D accommodation bursary.

Conference Progamme

 

Wednesday 11th December

 9.30am

 Registration Opens

10.10 – 11.00

Conference introduction and presentation 1: Chair: Colin Richards

Mike Parker Pearson (UCL) Stonehenge:How grand! How wonderful! How incomprehensible!’

11.00 – 11.20

Break

Session 1

Chair: Conchúr Ó Giollagáin

11.20 – 11.50

Mandy Haggith (UHI):  Bringing people back from the dead: fiction and poetry inspired by ruins

11.50 – 12.20

Simon Murray (University of Glasgow): Performing the ruin: some questions of materiality and dramaturgy

12.20 – 12.35

Discussion

12.35 – 1.30

Lunch

1.30 – 1.45

Conference Address: Crichton Lang (UHI Principle & Vice-Chancellor)

Session 2

Chair: Lesley Mickel

1.45 – 2.15

Siân Jones (University of Stirling): Negotiating decay: the temporal and material paradoxes of heritage conservation

2.15 – 2.45

Matt Ritchie (Forestry & Land Scotland): Set in concrete? Considering conservation and character at Lossie’s WWII coastal crust

2.45 – 3.15

Philippa Woodcock (UHI): The ruins of ambition: tracing the fragments of Valiois Milan

3.15 – 3.25

Discussion

3.25 – 3.45

Break

Session 3

Chair: Lindsay Blair

3.45 – 4.15

Antonia Thomas (UHI): “Ruins in Reverse: Time-Travelling in Contemporary Art and Contemporary Archaeology”

4.15 - 4.45

Alessandra Campoli (UHI): From modern ruins to human decay. Creative practices and ‘students as researchers’

4.45 – 5.15

Keith Mcintyre (UHI): Disturbed ground – immortalising the disappeared

5.15 – 5.25

Discussion

7.00pm Conference Dinner

 

Thursday 12th December

9.20 – 9.30

Day 2 - Introduction: Neil Simco (UHI - Vice Principal of Research)

 

Conference presentation 2 Chair: Iain Robertson

 

9.30 – 10.15

Hayden Lorimer (University of Edinburgh): Fortifying the ruin: the nightwatchman, the artists, the trespassers and their antagonisms

10.15 – 10. 35

Break

Session 4

Chair: Iain Robertson

10.35 – 11.05

Roxane Permar (UHI): Nuclear families

11.05 – 11.35

Fiona Smith (Robert Gordon University): Abandoned Places: the aestheticization of decay and the dark retrospective gaze

11.35 – 11.50

Discussion

12.50 – 12.10

Break

Session 5

Chair: Joanna Rodgers

12.10 – 12.40

Vicki Cummings (Uclan): Decaying bodies, ruined tombs: the afterlife of Neolithic chambered tombs in Britain and Ireland

12.40 – 1.10

Fiona J. Mackenzie (Canna House, National Trust for Scotland): Deserted Village on Mingulay: the Canna Archives- a folklore phoenix

1.10 – 1.20

Discussion

1.20 – 2.00

Lunch

Session 6

Chair: Ragnhild Ljosland

2.00 – 2.30

Hugh Cheape (UHI) Bàthadh nan Gleann – ‘the drowning of the Glens’: locating human ecology in the AMBER Project.

2.30 – 3.00

Anne Bevan (UHI) Beside the Ocean of time: mapping the sound

3.00 – 3.10

Discussion

3.10 – 3.25

Break

3.25 – 3.55

Kenny Brophy (University of Glasgow): Lingering timbers: the decline and fall of monuments of wood

3.55 – 4.25

Maya Darrell Hewins (UHI): From nitrate fires to bitrot – decay and destruction as a constant in the life of moving images

4.25 – 4.55

Paul Shanks (UHI): The heart of the Highlands: Tourism, ghosts and ruination in Inverness

 

4.55-5.15

Final discussion and conference conclusion: Michael Rayner: UHI Dean of Research