Activities

Group Members

A nice Google satellite image

Outline

The British railway network figures as a key materialisation of nineteenth-century industrialisation. From E P Thompson’s early work on the production of time by the new railways through to more recent studies of the interconnectedness of slavery, industry and migration, railways and their stations have been marked out as transitional ‘non-spaces’. Situated within Redcliffe, the prime area for regeneration in Bristol, Temple Meads is home to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s World Heritage Site passenger shed, housed within the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. Currently a contemporary conference venue it is hidden from public users and has become a contemporary site of ‘culturally emptied’ space, while historically it was a site of transition and mass migration. Timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Brunel, this workshop will use the passenger shed to explore issues around landscape and memory through a focus on mobility, empire, industry and materiality.

This workshop attempts to extend previous work that Andrew Patterson has been doing at the Central Railway Station (Rautatiesema) in Helsinki, as part of a Locative Media workshop [link].

See Members' Pages for outcomes from the Workshop. Invited participants' outputs were presented at the text/event/image symposium. Workshop participants were: Jo Carruthers, Iain Biggs, Jon Dovey, Jim Dixon, Mike Pearson, Moira Gavin, Anna Farthing, Peter Metelerkamp, Steve Mills, Douglass Bailey, Carol Stevens, Angela Piccini, Heike Roms.

Workshop Timetable

Friday

6-6.30: Meet @ Temple Meads bar/café for orientation: resource pack/ introductions/ aims

6.30-7.30: Reading group

7.30-8pm: Temple Meads walkabout

8pm: Train to Stapleton Road

8-10pm: Dinner (Café Maitreya, Easton)

10.30pm: Optional: return to Temple Meads by train for late-night visit

Saturday

9.30am: Meet @ Temple Meads bar/café for orientation

10am: Convene @ BECM for tour of passenger shed and vaults

11.30-12.30: BECM Education room: intro resources, methods, working groups

12.30-2pm: Lunch @ Reckless Engineer pub (across from Temple Meads)

2-4: Group/solo work @ BECM and TM

4-6: Reconvene to share practices and work so-far – group critical responses

6-8pm: Public free screening in station (Brief Encounter, tbc)

8pm: Dinner (location tbc)

Sunday

10am: Discuss plans for day, based on responses to initial work

11am-1pm: Group/solo work

1pm: Lunch

2-3pm: Reconvene to share practices and work so-far – group critical responses

3-5pm: Final group/solo work session

5-5.30pm: Discuss contributions to symposium and final remarks