A one-day conference in Black History Month, chaired, and organised by Dr Bridget Snaith CMLI. 26/10/2019
Despite high hopes for open spaces as “the foundation for public interaction and social integration” (Urban Task Force, 2005) our urban parks, squares, country parks and rural landscapes are not unproblematically and equally open to all.
In the UK, there is significantly less quality greenspace in neighbourhoods with a high proportion of residents from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (CABE 2010), and even in parks and other nature spaces accessible to diverse communities, people from non-white backgrounds are frequently under-represented as users (Natural England 2016).
Similar findings in the United States have prompted researchers there to question whether predominantly white landscape professions are creating ethno-racially inscribed landscapes, and so influencing who feels welcome (Byrne & Wolch, 2009).
We ask: Who and what is represented in the landscape? Does power to shape the landscape promote preferred narratives and practices, limiting cultural access? Why are the professions that produce our urban and rural landscapes not more ethnically diverse?
This event will bring together leading international practitioners and researchers from the arts, from landscape architecture, and other academic disciplines, to explore issues of diversity, ethnicity and representation, to ask, is this just landscape?
For further details, contact conference organiser: Dr Bridget Snaith CMLI (b.snaith@uel.ac.uk)
Keynote speakers
Walter Hood
Walter Hood is an award-winning US landscape architect, artist and academic. He is creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio, practicing at the intersection of landscape, art, and urbanism. His practice portfolio spans public spaces for major institutions such as Cooper Hewitt Museum, as well as community spaces like Splash Pad Park in Oakland, or Baisley Park in New York City (now Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Community Garden). He is Professor of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley.
http://www.hooddesignstudio.com/
Ingrid Pollard
Ingrid Pollard is a multi-award winning British photographer, artist and researcher. Her work often uses portrait photography and landscape imagery, to explore social constructs such as Britishness or racial difference. Co-founder of the Black Environment Network with Julian Agyeman, and member of Autograph photography collective, her works are held in major collections, and exhibited nationally and internationally. Works include Self Evident, Wordsworth’s Heritage, Belonging in Britain, Near & Far, Landscape Trauma, Points of View, Hidden Histories, Heritage Stories, and Oceans Apart.
http://www.ingridpollard.com
Vron Ware
Vron Ware is Professor of Sociology & Gender Studies at Kingston University with an international reputation for researching anti-racism and feminism. Her books include Beyond the Pale: white women, racism & history (1992/2015); Out of Whiteness: colour, politics & culture (2002, with Les Back); and Who Cares about Britishness? (2007). Awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2018, she is currently investigating the ‘English Village’ in relation to ideas of landscape, class, gender, religion, sustainability, colonial history, whiteness, and rural England.
https://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/professor-vron-ware-279
Event Programme 26/10/2019
Keynotes :
Walter Hood - In Plain Sight and Q&A
Vron Ware - Nothing natural: landscape at the heart of identity and Q&A
Ingrid Pollard - The Importance of Si -te /-ght and Q&A
Invited Panel Discussion:
Supporting diversity in the built environment professions
Peer Reviewed Papers:
Clare Rishbeth, Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacekb and Jonathan Darling: Participation and wellbeing in urban greenspace - ‘curating sociability’ for refugees and asylum seekers
Hildy Steinacker: 'Desirable green' - Informing design guidelines for inclusive restoration in small urban green spaces
Diana Chrouch: Disempowerment in the Built Environment? It’s time for change
L Mhari, E Scarth: A landscape of one’s own? Feminism in the field of Landscape Architecture
H. Ela Alanyalı Aral, Deniz Altay Kaya and Reem Chariff: Visibility of Migrant Communities in Urban Spaces - Önder Neighbourhood, Ankara
Maxwell Ayamba and Maxine Greaves: Contested Landscapes - Race and countryside spaces - Black Men Walking
Venue Information
Conference and computer centre, University of East London, Water Lane E15 4LZ