I'm part of an insurgent research group working on the Anthropocene Atlas of Geneva, and London (TAAG and TAAL). Sensing long term, slow, slow compared to human lifespans, climatic changes and understanding how our activities are influencing these changes is complex and challenging.  As a result, we are working on micro-investigations in the city, developing awareness of local erratics - erratics are geological anomalies, rocks out of place, that enabled early geologists to deduce that giant ice flows had shaped much of our planet – as tools to narrate climatic changes, while identifying institutions and communities experimenting with resilience to the changes to come.

You can read about the inspirational anthropocene walk in Geneva.

As part of my ongoing research I visited Wapping in east London, and wandered down a narrow alley besides a pub that leads to some watermen's stairs and then descended to the Thames foreshore.

I have a long-held fascination with the Great Exhibition of 1851, and more generally the means through which we structure value through things.

In March, an insurgent research group I am part of visited Genva to meet with artists, academics and activists at CCC, part of HEAD (Haute école d'art et de design). We were introduced to, and inspired by their nascent work on the Anthropocene Atlas of Geneva (TAAG). Sensing large scale climatic changes and understanding how human activities are influencing these changes, is complex and challenging.  As a result, the reserachers in Geneva are working on micro-investigations in the city, developing local indicators, indicators we learnt to call erratics, of long term climatic change while identifying institutions and communities experimenting with resilience to the changes to come. You can read about our walks, meetings and presentations.

We borrowed some of their methods, and one of our London group, Karel Doing curated the first in our Anthropocene Walk(s), London. I took some tracings of the day and wrote into them later...

As part of Critical Practice I’ve been working on a series of events/walking tours/discussions. Over the next two years, we will work with a wide range of international partners to explore value from various and perhaps even contradictory perspectives. 

One strand of this research The Brokers: People, Spaces and Values will be a series of guided tours lead by a specific Broker, they will explore how different social practices of evaluation, are situated, localized and embedded in particular places, buildings, public spaces and institutions. 

The Brokers: People, Spaces and Values. Waste

Who: The Brokers are environmental lawyer and Dotmaker guide Rosie Oliver, and economic geographer Angus Cameron 

When: 10.00 for a 10.15am (sharp) start - Saturday 16th February (we leave at 10.15 sharp as Thames tides wait for no person!) 

Where: We will perambulate the Isle of Dogs, Greenwich and Blackheath, unpicking notions of waste, the unwanted and the marginal. The walking-tour format aims to investigate the specific situation of waste... Each activity will last an hour and a half, and comprise a combination of prepared tour, and animated discussion.