SEMINAR // ACTIVIST MAPPING & MAPPING AS ACTIVISM

The Lines of Flight research group is delighted to host a seminar on activist mapping and mapping as activism with members from 3C/counter-cartographies collective, Labor-K, and Pablo de Soto. The aim of this seminar is to discuss what mapping means as a political tool, and what it means as a research research tool; questions of critical mapping vs counter mapping; tactical mapping as research; as well as the implications of working within and/or outside institutions.

Our guests:
Natasha Aruri, Kathleen De Flander & Andreas Bruck – Labor-K
Liz Mason-Deese, Sebastian Cobarrubias Baglietto & Maribel Casas-Cortes – the counter-cartographies collective
Pablo de Soto – pablodesoto.org

June 29 2021 2-3.30 pm  (UK time) – Online
Email linesofflight.ssoa (at) gmail (dot) com for link

TALK // Common Spaces / Stavros Stavrides / AbdouMaliq Simone / Ana Mendez de Andes

Urban Commons / Stavros Stavrides / AbdouMaliq Simone / Ana Mendez de Andes

June 8th 2021, 2-3:30 pm (UK) – Online

This session is put together to attempt to address and hopefully begin to overcome the morbid state of a present without future and to create a vector that connects what we do – here and now – with the life we want to produce.

We would like to combine the potential of the common spaces with the cities (yet) to come. We are interested in challenging the idea of ‘planning’ as a tool not to segment and reduce the present, but as a methodology to project, in common, those territories yet to come. That is, to give them a shape, identify potential, ensamble relations, establish porous membranes and define ethical machines.

This informs members of Lines of Flight’s research into ethical tools and practices for reimagining the city from three perspectives or approaches – The Urban Commons, The Decolonial and the feminist city.

SEMINAR // De-Colonising Planning / Alexandre Frediani

Decolonising Planning seminar

Lines of Flight / Design, Engagement and Practice (DEP) research group

11 May 2021 – 14:00-15:30 (BST)

This talk puts forward challenges to consider new ways of understanding the world much broader than a Western understanding, by providing a space for critical discussions about theory and practice of decolonising knowledge. This seminar is an opportunity to introduce the term (decolonisation) in our research and further unpack the relations between researchers and the range of actors involved in their studies, and address the power relations and values that underpin them.

Speaker:

Dr Alexandre Frediani – International Institute for environment and development (iied) https://www.iied.org/

For link, please email: linesofflight.ssoa (at ) gmail (dot) com

TALK // Urban Pedagogy // Christine Gaspar // Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

We’re delighted to talk with the Centre for Urban Pedagogy’s director Christine Gaspar, who will share with us CUP’s approach to civic pedagogy, with a focus on working with youth, students, communities and on public policy. We’re excited for this presentation followed by a discussion on the 20th April 2021. ‘The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a non-profit organisation that uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement. CUP collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues.’

More info here: http://welcometocup.org/

SEMINAR // Care

In light of the current context and feelings of uncertainty which accompany it, we are delighted to be hosting this online seminar with close friends of the extended research family the Lines of Flight. The aim of this seminar is to reflect on and develop our understanding of the ethics of care and relational ethics and how these concepts can inform the many different facets of our research, practice, teaching and everyday life.

Our guests:

Kim Trogal –  University of Creative Arts

Anna Holder –  University of Creative Arts / Polpo

Bianca Elzenbaumer – Brave New Alps / La Foresta / EURAC Research

Julia Udall – Sheffield Hallam University / Polpo 

March 1st 2021, 7-9 pm UK time – online

DISCUSSION // How to practice a PhD?

This information has been uploaded in connection with a Lines of Flight seminar that took place on the 6th April, 2016.

Difference and sustainability within and between practice-led PhDs
and PhDs by design

At the moment in the School and in discussion with the PhD by
Design conferences, that some of us have been involved in, there
have been many recurring questions about the difference between a
practice-led PhD and PhD by Design and what forms they take in
Architecture – so we would like to bring this to the table. If you have
examples of PhDs or ways of working within your own research bring
them. It would be good to start to build up a resource between us of
our collective knowledge in this area.

SEMINAR // Mapping in research / Doina Petrescu / Nishat Awan

The Lines of Flight research group hosted a session with Doina Petrescu and Nishat Awan presenting the use of mapping in their work. How can maps and the activity of mapping be useful in research? What are the potentials and pitfalls? How do we use maps in our everyday life today? The talks were followed by a discussion and an informal presentation round to which we invite participants to bring a map of their liking to be analysed collectively.

WORKSHOP // Story-telling / Lines of Flight

We discussed story-telling methodologies – in particular, the different ways narratives can be constructed as a framework for understanding subjects/objects and interview data within qualitative research.

SEMINAR // Scholar Activism // Jenny Pickerill // May 6th 2015

Next Wednesday, from 12 noon to 1pm we will host a session with Jenny Pickerill, in which we will collectively explore the possibilities of scholar-activism.

The session will be built up as follows: a brief history of why scholar-activism is necessary, important and some of its roots; then a discussion around a typology of different ways to be a scholar-activist. This includes shaping policy debates, long term community work, situated solidarities and direct action. Each will be discussed with examples, discussion of their impacts and reflections on some of their limitations.

6 May, 12.00 – 13.00
Sheffield School of Architecture
Arts Tower, floor 13
The seminar room next to the administrative office

Some reading:

The Autonomous Geographies Collective. (2010) Beyond Scholar activism: Making Strategic Interventions Inside and Outside the Neoliberal University. ACME, 9, 2, http://www.acme-journal.org/Volume9-2.htm

Derickson KD and Routledge P (2015) Resourcing Scholar-Activism: Collaboration, Transformation, and the Production of Knowledge, Professional Geographer, 67.

Scholar activism table

VISIT // Lines of Flight in Hackney Wick // April 24th 2015

Today, Lines of Flight will move to London, where, from 2pm onwards, we will discuss around mapping with Andreas Lang and Mara Ferreri. We will meet at public work’s studio in Hackney Wick at 2 and then walk over to the Wick Common Shop, a temporary space in residence until July in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. As part of R-Urban Wick, it “hosts events, workshops and exhibitions around the idea of the ‘Common Object’, artefacts which are not conceived for individual gain but which express ideas of a common good while at the same time unearthing and revealing hidden relationships or narratives about the locality.”