Norham Station
I can’t help but be fascinated with what is slipping from memory and becoming “history”. And the romance of the railway. Just found a wonderful site called “Forgotten relics” – it has a page on a favorite village of mine (the castle straight out of Scott’s “Marmion”) on a branch line in the Scottish borders [...]
Archaeological project design
Encountering the work of FARO in Flanders (see blog entry – [Link]) prompted me to think about our own project in the Roman borders at the Roman town of Binchester – VINOVIVM.org – and particularly in relation to the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention [Link] I talked about the implementation of broad principles and policies [...]
elements of a theory of ruin
A wonderful talk this evening from Alain Schnapp in our Archaeology Center. It was about “ruin” as an intellectual artifact. Through a kaleidoscope of quotes and vignettes about ruin from antiquity to modernity, Alain reflected upon broad human experiences at the heart of our sense of history, memory practices, collection, temporality. Goethe among the ruins [...]
end of industry
At the Durham Miners’ Gala 2009 The annual celebration of a great industry and labor movement, once a living force, now a memory, nostalgically inspiring at best, after Thatcher’s neo-liberal ideology and political spite closed all the coal mines and devastated the pit villages. Gallery – Link
Behind the Locked Door
An archaeology of the store rooms of the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Don’t you often wonder about what museums keep in their store rooms, but rarely manage to display? The hidden, perhaps forgotten, treasures of “The Archive” Last year, between March 2007 and April 2008, in a small gallery off the main stair well in [...]
Performing Presence
Our project to investigate “presence” in live performance and media draws to a close with a final conference – March 25-30 Exeter University UK – summing up a tremendous five years of work … [Link] Link – Presence – the conference Next comes a book from Routledge – “Archaeologies of Presence” – due out in [...]
Bamburgh UK
Site of the court of the Kingdom of Northumbria – at its height in the seventh and eighth centuries.
sensory memory
The British Library has just launched a new web site devoted to the accents and dialects of the north of England, fast disappearing. Collect Britain, putting history in place. You can listen to recordings made from the 1950s of people talking about everyday life. They are saturated in locality. And just the sounds, intonation, cadence [...]
Cultural physiognomy
Visiting Alan Campbell, House of Commons, London. Prime Minister’s Question Time and a debate calling for a judicial inquiry into the Iraq war. The look and feel of the corridors and chambers together with the look of the inmates (MPs, visitors and staff) are so familiar. Not because we have all seen it on TV [...]
end of empire?
Wallsend UK Roman fort at the end of Hadrian’s Wall. I dug here in 1975; I was 15 and I loved fieldwork. I remember the town the most. The site is right by Swann Hunter Shipbuilders, one of the big firms on the Tyne. My dad worked here – late 60s. Most of the old [...]
Heritage and urban myth
Gateshead UK – Baltic Center for Contemporary Art Dinner last night with Peter and Sue MacDonald; Helen of course too. The restaurant is at the top of the old flour mill on the quayside, though it looks like a grain silo. It’s now an arts center, 46 million quids worth. Lots of other development here [...]
