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See below details of sessions sponsored by Social and Cultural Geography at this year’s Annual conference at the University of Birmingham

To mark the 50th anniversary of our research group, the committee organised a day-long event to celebrate this milestone and reflect on its evolution over five decades. We were kindly hosted by the University of Nottingham’s Department of Geography, to whom we would like to extend our since thanks. We would also like to express our deep gratitude to the wonderful participants and attendees who took the time to come along and celebrate with us, particularly those who contributed to our panel sessions throughout the day.

You can read more about the event here: https://www.rgs.org/about-us/our-work/latest-news/celebrating-50-years

We are pleased to announce the next event in our Early Career Event Series: Brachland: Audiowalk about Urban Utopias in Berlin-Weißensee with Katya Romanova, where our audiences can learn about academic collaboration with artists. Please see details of the event and registration below.

11.00 – 11.40 BST 16 May ONLINE

Registration: please visit https://forms.office.com/r/qB0tF8j9qq

Event description:
“The walk changed the way I look at abandoned urban places. It doesn’t always have to be filled with something.” “I will now pay more attention to abandoned places.” “It was such a special way to discover something totally different in Berlin”. “I bet there are such places in my hood as well, now I want to know more!”

In this talk, Katya shares her experience of creating the audiowalk as part of her bachelor project at HTW Berlin and provides insights on artistic cooperation with different stakeholders.

Weißensee, a district in the north of Berlin, undergoing a significant transformation, serves as the canvas for our audio walk project. In this immersive experience, we aim to alter perceptions of abandoned spaces from mere temporary voids to experimental playgrounds. Protagonists from the neighbourhood share their stories, turning abandoned places into experimental playgrounds and offering participants a unique post-reunification art safari, a drink in their favourite pub, a stroll through post-war rubble, and a glimpse of the enchanted island and wild playground of Weißensee. These spaces become arenas of freedom, allowing brief moments to imagine boundless possibilities. The project takes a deep dive into the evolving identity of Weißensee, particularly focusing on the impact of increasing construction on the district’s atmosphere. Residents express frustration and nostalgia as the changes unfold, fearing Weißensee may follow the gentrification path of Prenzlauer Berg.

By engaging with vacant plots, the project contemplates the past, present, and future, providing a vivid depiction of Berlin’s recent transformations – gentrification, construction sites, shrinking public and creative spaces, and densification. This endeavour evolves beyond a simple exploration of urban spaces; it becomes a socio-political reflection on the changing landscape, encouraging residents to actively participate in neighbourhood life, potentially initiating community projects.

Katya Romanova is a designer, project manager, and co-founder of the re:imagine your city collective, independent design lab based in Berlin that serves as a cross-disciplinary platform for urban practices and transformation. Katya is interested in exploring the topics of local & global identities, neighborhood activation, (audio) storytelling, and new approaches to the temporary use of public spaces, which she explores through participatory design and media projects. She has a degree in Teaching Languages and a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communications at HTW Berlin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/katromanova/

We are pleased to announce the next event in our Early Career Event Series, ‘Listening for the Othered in Cultural Spaces: Listening Practices within Museums – How to Engage with Space and Sound?’ with Girinandini Singh. Please see details of the event and the registration link below.

11.00 – 11.40 GMT 28 February ONLINE

Registration: https://shorturl.asia/i0coL

Event Description:

‘Sometimes sound is swift and imperceptible, other times bodies cannot help but feel “those points where time stands still,’ draws you back, leaps ahead, and you “slip into the breaks”. Floating alongside the sounds in a space, for me conjures up images of stillness, unable to quite capture the tangibility of something but bearing witness, nonetheless. When I think back to the times I’ve tried to learn a new language, for instance – Arabic, Nepali, Italian – what I remember is a sense of floating along the formless – an endless sea of sounds big and small, booming or infringing on mute – vowels merging with consonants, grabbing for form and shape or perhaps it was me who was grabbing for said structure. Saloṁe Voegelin writes about the inextricable lightness of sound, and its movement – especially when said sound, movement, and space is wholly and entirely alien to one – ‘It was all, at least at first, greatly confusing. I was at sea amid movement without form and could not anchor my thoughts in the steady container of the object but, instead, had to let them pass continually in the formless shape of sound. There was no pinning down, no transference, no hold, just the roller-coaster of changing shapes whose materiality was their contingent possibility’. I begin by considering this nature of sound for it leads me to thinking about the ethics of listening and what weight that may carry for us as researchers and educators and to us as learners and consumers. In this talk, we will explore listening as a methodology of doing/thinking/being in research and practice, a perspective that is embedded in a practice of decoloniality. I will explore examples in a variety of spaces from classrooms to museums to digital worlds. As we collectively explore the presence of sound/stillness/silence within spaces of research, learning, and education largely we will explore the act/action of listening as a diffractive apparatus. What does such a listening apparatus do? Can it allow us to build multi or plural worlds with polyphonous perspectives and possibilities of knowing/knowledge-making? I will attempt to engage and think through collaboratively with participants, what stories we are allowing in, perpetuating, grabbing onto – as we look for a recognizable form in the formless sea of sound within an alien language – what can this do for inclusivity or dare I alternate it with the polyphony of experiences in the classroom and pedagogical practices.

Girinandini is currently pursuing her PhD in Education (Arts and Creativity in Education Research Group ) on Exploring Sound/Silence as a form of presencing underlying and alternative socio-cultural worlds, histories and legacies. Girinandini also works with The Brilliant Club and with Cambridge cultural institutions like Kettle’s Yard and Cambridge Visual Culture, designing and developing learning engagement programs utilizing aesthetic education, performance within museum spaces, and oral storying formats for schools and community outreach.