Topographies of the Obsoleteis an Artistic Research project (KU Prosjekt) initiated by Professors Neil Brownsword and Anne Helen Mydland at Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB) in collaboration with partner universities/institutions in Denmark, Germany and the UK. Our main collaborative partner is the British Ceramics Biennial, who invited KHiB to work at the original Spode Works factory in Stoke-on-Trent, to develop a site specific artistic response as a core element of their 2013 exhibition program. More than 40 international artists and theoreticians have participated in this multidisciplinary project with a program of seminars, publications and exhibitions. Three residencies have accumulated individual artistic projects from which the overriding project has developed.
The project focus centres upon the landscape of post-industry, more particular; that of Stoke-on-Trent, a world renowned ceramic capital that bears in its city evidence of fluctuations in global fortunes. The original Spode factory, situated in the heart of Stoke-on-Trent, was once a keystone of the city's industrial heritage which operated upon its original site for over 230 years. Amongst Spode's contributions to ceramic history include the perfection of under-glaze blue printing and Fine Bone China. The factory's industrial architecture dates from the 1760's to the late 1980's, with spaces associated with all aspects of the design, manufacture, retail and administration in close geographical proximity. In 2008 Spode's Church Street site closed, with most of its production infrastructure and contents left intact.
The exposition is set up to finally offer a model or method for running workshops and initiating discussions with ethical issues, ethical thinking or mapping ethics is in the main focus. The work is a contribution from the Bergen workpackage in the Erasmus+ project Advaning Supervision for Artistic Research Doctorates.
Lost Conference 2020... ...Relic Site 2021
The Crisis Collective! 11th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, Bergen 2020 was set to become a milestone effort and presentation of artistic research on the current societal challenges. In a twist of fate, it had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. Cancellation is an anti-event: it creates absence.
This exposition is published in the state it was presented at the SAR conference Care Dare Share, in 2021. A revised edition, that will be updated every 6 months, will be available on the RC platform.