Interdisciplinary research talks and participatory workshops
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SATURDAY 1 FEBRUARY 2020
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12:30– 1 PM
ONE FOLD
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ARTIST TALK AND RESEARCH INTRODUCTION
Gina DeCagna
Free and open to all
Please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90140186725
Artist Gina DeCagna initiates a pop-up series of lectures and workshops centred around notions of the ‘manifold’ through conversations with researchers around her. She opens with a talk on her own recent artistic explorations exposing the most ubiquitous discarded material around us — cardboard — through arrangements into installations. She creates these assemblages as symbolic means to arouse social questions around empowerment and inequality. She will lead attendees through a variety of creative prompts and hands-on activities, contemplating the roles of subjectivity within larger societal systems.
1 – 1:30 PM
TWO FOLD
SHAPES IN SPACE
MANIFOLDS IN MATHS:
A BEGINNER’S LECTURE IN TOPOLOGY
Dr Mehdi Yazdi
Free and open to all
Please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90138509709
In this talk, topologist Mehdi Yazdi displays mesmerising visualisations whilst providing a beginner’s introduction to mathematical concepts in topology. We will learn qualitative properties described in terms of manifolds and foliations that have long fascinated topologists, who have undertaken visual inspiration from marbleised paper, as used in handmade books, as well as in the expanding rings of trees found in nature.
1:30 – 3PM
PAPER-MARBLEISING WORKSHOP
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£15; please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90152678087
Be guided through the historical process of marbleizing paper and create your own! No experience necessary and all materials provided. We will take away our own marbleised creations — unique visualisations on the interdisciplinary concepts discussed in the previous talks.
SUNDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2020
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12:30 – 1PM
TEN FOLD
LANGUAGES IN SPACE
MANIFOLDS IN MEDIA:
A BEGINNER’S LECTURE IN POETICS
Dr Orchid Tierney
Free and open to all
Please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90146421373
In this talk, poet–scholar Orchid Tierney explores the ‘manifolds’ of waste management systems in media representation, particularly through contemporary poetry and photography. We will explore how wasted matter, and the languages of waste, migrates through different artistic forms, whilst considering poetry’s manifold, and often leaky, encounters with abjection. Tierney will conclude with a short reading from her recent poetry on plastic and landfill gas.
1 – 2:30PM
BOOKBINDING & WRITING WORKSHOP
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£15; please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90154898729
Be guided through a hands-on bookbinding and writing workshop! No experience necessary and all materials provided. We will learn how to stitch together hand-made paper to compile our thoughts made manifold. Guided through a series of poetry and creative writing prompts led by Orchid Tierney, we may fill the pages with unique creative expressions and critical responses to the previous talks.
2:30 – 3 PM
MANIFOLD
Free and open to all
Please register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/90150058251
In an open-forum discussion facilitated by the project’s leaders and partners, we will all convene to discuss our concerns and questions, starting with our responses to Kant’s philosophical use of a ‘manifold of sense.’
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Gina DeCagna is a MFA candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London, finishing in September 2020. Her public-facing interventionist installations have shown in solo and group exhibitions in London, New York, Philadelphia, and forthcoming Venice. She has been a Venice Fellow under the British Council (2019), Arts Engagement Fellow of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW) at the University of Pennsylvania (2017–2018), and a Steering Committee Member of the Philadelphia Avant-Garde Studies Consortium (PASC) (2017–2018). She earned her BA in English, Creative Writing and Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was founder and editor of Symbiosis (2012–2016), a project and publication of collaborating contemporary artists and writers.
Dr Mehdi Yazdi is an Iranian mathematician specialised in topology and geometry; his research interests include surfaces and three-dimensional manifolds, foliations, and knot theory. He is a Glasstone Research Fellow in Science at the University of Oxford's Mathematical Institute and a Junior Research Fellow at St Peter's College. He received his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 2017 and has given talks widely, including at University of Cambridge, Yale University, University of California at Berkley, and Columbia University, among other institutions. He draws inspiration from geometric forms found in nature and in historical and contemporary models of art and architecture.
Dr Orchid Tierney is a poet and scholar from Aotearoa-New Zealand. She joined the English faculty at Kenyon College in 2019 after receiving her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches American and Anglophone poetry with a specific focus on the literatures of the Pacific region. Her wide ranging scholarly interests include environmental humanities, sound studies, and the digital humanities. Her current book project investigates the systems and representations of waste and waste management in contemporary poetry and film. She is the author of a year of misreading of the wildcats (New York: The Operating System, 2019), earsay (n.p.:Trollthread, 2016) and five chapbooks, including ocean plastic (New York: BlazeVOX, 2019), blue doors (New York: Belladonna* Press, 2018), and Gallipoli Diaries (n.p.: Gauss PDF, 2017). In addition to her creative work, her scholarship and reviews have been published in journals such as Jacket2 and the Journal of Modern Literature. She is a reviews editor for Jacket2 and a consulting editor for the Kenyon Review.
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