Cultures of Place

After Ours is a multi-media installation of sound, video, bodies and synthetic skin. Film footage intervenes in two spots in the West Yorkshire area: the Westwood Mill in Linthwaite and Bridestones Moor in Todmorden. Westwood Mill is believed to be the oldest surviving woollen mill in the Colne Valley, the original buildings built as a scribbling mill in 1798. The Bridestones Moor is a half mile stretch of millstone grit rocks which, due to weather erosion, have been shaped into distinctive figures over millions of years. The immersive installation in the Create Lab of the Barbara Hepworth Building at the University of Huddersfield provokes us with questions about place and temporality, including our material bodily relationship to place. Colin Frank, Maria Sappho and Sam Gillies ask:  

What does it mean to be both within and in extension of place, and yet foreign, where the presence of oddity itself seems right, albeit absurd? Must our bodies always end at our skin? How might we dissolve the edges of our presence and build something in relation? If not us, then what else will? 

These questions are explored in and through the multi-media installation itself.   

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): offering new forms of engaging with historical/pre-historical environments through performance and sound. 

Contributors: 

Dr Colin Frank was awarded his PhD in School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield in 2022 with a thesis titled ‘Making with Agential Objects’. 

 colinfranksounding.com/  

Dr Maria Sappho was awarded her PhD on the European Research Council project IRiMaS in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, in 2022. She is currently working with ImpactIA foundation developing the transhuman orchestra of instruments designed by AI and fungal collaboration and is a member of the Glasgow Improviser’s Orchestra.  

https://www.mariasappho.com/.   

https://www.glasgowimprovisersorchestra.com/about/.  

Dr Sam Gillies completed his PhD in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield in 2020 with a thesis titled ‘Frames and Spaces: Cinematic Virtual Reality as an Audiovisual Compositional Practice’.  

https://www.samgillies.com/   

Further Information: 

Maria Sappho and Colin Frank perform as duo ensemble Brutalust. They will be releasing an album on the label Crow versus Crow in 2022.  

https://www.instagram.com/brutalust_duo/  

Further Reading: 

The Roberto Gerhard Digital Archive (Heritage Quay, University of Huddersfield)  https://heritagequay.org/rgda/roberto-gerhard/  

Samuel Gillies (2020) Composing with Frames and Spaces: Cinematic Virtual Reality as an Audiovisual Compositional Practice. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield https://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35262/  

Depth/Gauge invited members of the public to participate in a drawing workshop exploring the canal space as a site of interaction. The workshop focused on the process of collecting and interpreting graphite rubbings from Huddersfield Narrow Canal.  

An important artery for the industrial development of the region, Huddersfield Narrow Canal runs between Huddersfield in West Yorkshire and Ashton under Lyne in Greater Manchester. At the turn of the 19th century the narrow canal linked the Huddersfield Broad Canal with the Ashton Canal, creating a more direct link between the industrial cities of Manchester and Leeds.  

After an introduction to the history of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, workshop participants explored the topography of the canal directly by taking graphite rubbings from the surfaces and textures of the canal. This creative exploration of the canal was accompanied by selected readings on waterways performed by Jodie Matthews, opening up new ways of relating to, or thinking about, the canal space. The rubbings were relocated to Parlour in The Piazza Shopping Centre, where they were laid out and interpreted together. These rubbings were curated into a large-scale collective and collaborative artwork displayed at Parlour over the Cultures of Place festival period. 

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): using collaborative drawing as a methodology to uncover new ways of connecting with the local canal and waterways. 

Contributors: 

Simon Woolham is a Lecturer in Contemporary Art in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

https://insearchoftheshortcuts.com/  

Jodie Matthews is Professor in English Literature in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Further information: 

The Huddersfield Canal Society was formed in 1974 by a group of enthusiasts with the ambitious aim of restoring the then derelict Huddersfield Narrow Canal to through navigation and improving the Broad Canal  

https://huddersfieldcanal.com/  

Parlour is a test space for everyone to enjoy, a place for arts and cultural conversation, connection, learning and development. Parlour is a project by Parley. https://www.byparley.co.uk/   

Further reading: 

Matthews, J. (2020). Canals in Nineteenth-Century Literary History. In D. Turner (Ed.), Transport and its Place in History: Making the Connections (Routledge Studies in Modern British History). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351186636-10  

Woolham, S. (2020) In Search of the Shortcuts: Engaging with Sites of History and Narrative. [Practice Research Folio] https://research.hud.ac.uk/media/assets/document/research/ceada/SimonWoolham-InSearchoftheShortcuts-web.pdf  

Graphic Events: The Life of Signs was a public workshop inspiring different ways of thinking about place through slow, counter-intuitive interactions with graphics. The workshop celebrated the launch of the book Graphic Events: A Realist Account of Signs by researchers Nick Deakin and James Dyer. The book proposes that place-based understandings of graphic designs are dynamic social acts that need to be re-imagined in contemporary culture. 

The project invited members of the Huddersfield creative community to explore the space of The Piazza Shopping Centre and to creatively document everyday, vernacular graphic signs through drawing and photography. Using the facilities of West Yorkshire Print Workshop these graphic-findings were then used as the starting point for creating collaborative hand-made print publications.  

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): re-negotiating the values and meanings of vernacular graphic signs through tacit, hands-on explorations with print. 

Contributors: 

Nick Deakin works commercially under the studio moniker Totally Okay and is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design at Leeds Arts University. 

www.totallyokay.co.uk  

Dr James Dyer is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

www.jamesdyer.co.uk  

Further Information: 

Established in 1984, West Yorkshire Print Workshop is the largest open access printmaking facility in Yorkshire 

https://wypw.org/   

Further Reading:  

Deakin, N., & Dyer, J. (2022) Graphic Events: A Realist Account of Signs. Eindhoven: Onomatopee.  

Deakin, N., & Dyer, J. (2020). Collision. Everyday Graphic Design. Evental Aesthetics, 9(1), 95-102.  

Handheld Home was a public workshop hosted by CollaborARTi and led by Amy Chen and Katrina McLaughlin. Participants were invited to capture the sights, sounds and textures of home, through the creation of a handheld e-textiles artefact.   

The workshop provided participants with the basic skills to create a simple e-textiles circuit and encouraged participants to reflect on their relationship to the place they call home. The completed artefacts formed a community created interactive art exhibition that was displayed in CollaborARTi Gallery 2 during the Cultures of Place festival. 

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): learning and reflecting through experimentation with new materials. 

Contributors: 

Dr Amy Chen is a Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Katrina Mclaughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield 

Further Information:  

CollaborARTi is a peer-to-peer artist support network based in Huddersfield currently occupying meanwhile spaces in the Piazza Shopping Centre provided by Temporary Contemporary. 

http://collaborarti.co.uk/  

Further reading:  

 Tan, J., Chen, A., Shao, L.,  Kim, H. & Ge, L. (2022) Customization of e-textile sensory tools for people with dementia, The Design Journal, 25:1, 104-125, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2021.1992943.  

Chen, A., Tan, J., & Henry, Pl. (2021) E-Textile Design through the Lens of Affordance, Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 9:2, 164-183, DOI: 10.1080/20511787.2021.1935110. 

TBC

Inspired by artist JR’s ‘Inside Out’ project, The People’s exhibition sought to capture 50 portraits of members of the public in a single day in The Piazza Shopping Centre and to create an exhibition with and of the community on the high street. After the exhibition closed, the people photographed could come and collect their portraits.  

This project subverted expectations of what an art exhibition can be, with members of the community being participants, exhibits and audiences on the high street. The photographs themselves have become part of a generative archive of communities as part of the global ‘Inside Out’ project. 

Research approach to place (Making Place): exploring different forms of exhibition-making practice with communities on the high street. 

Contributors: 

Katrina Whitehead is Lecturer in Fashion Promotion/Creative Writing in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Further Information:  

Inside Out Project- a global art project created by JR: https://www.insideoutproject.net/en/  

TBC

The installation Looming [de]Vices – [RE]assembled Machines questioned the transformation, disintegration and renewal of Huddersfield’s textile and urban fabric. Drawing inspiration from the town’s architectural and textile heritage this collaborative practice brought together the disciplines of architecture, fashion and textiles through the common thread of [fabric]ation. 

The spatial practice of installation de-constructed and unravelled technical drawings and blueprints for historic textile machinery and the built environment of Huddersfield found through archival research. Utilising drawing, 3D printing, laser cutting, digital and traditional embroidery, the installation created a speculative re-constructed vocabulary through the de-construction of Huddersfield’s temporal fabric. 

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): interpreting and re-constructing the visual language of Huddersfield’s textiles heritage through collaborations between architectural and textiles research practices. 

Contributors: 

Melissa Fletcher is an Embroidery Technician in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Bea Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Architecture Technology in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Katrina Mclaughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Further reading: 

Martin, B.. (2020). Topo[graphies] of the Un/conscious. Architecture Image Studies, 1(2), 22-33. https://doi.org/10.48619/ais.v1i2.321 

Postmemory in the North was a video installation hosted by Holocaust Centre North 

(previously the Holocaust Education and Learning Centre) at University of Huddersfield. It featured four audiovisual works created by Ben Spatz with Nazlıhan Eda Erçin, Agnieszka Mendel and others, as part of Spatz’s ongoing Judaica Project. Accompanying texts by Lindsey Dodd, which filter the videos through the contextual and interpretive frame of ‘Postmemory’, were published in an accompanying programme booklet co-designed with Paula Kolar.   

In The Generation of Postmemory (2012) Marianne Hirsch defined ‘postmemory’ as the strange feeling of having memories which actually belong to past generations. These are created by the ‘stories, images, and behaviors among which [descendents] grew up’ and are 'transmitted so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right’ (Hirsch, 2012, 5).   

The videos presented in the exhibition follow the spatial encounters of the 2017 Judaica Project lab team with ruined and partially restored synagogues in rural Poland. As described by Ben Spatz in the accompanying publication: ‘… we lay our songs and bodies against the peculiarity of each site’.   

Placing these videos in dialogue with the core exhibition of Holocaust Centre North situated them in a different temporal and spatial context, forming new narratives between place, memory and history. A guest talk by Dr Nafhesa Ali (Northumbria University) created an additional dimension for the project, addressing trauma, postmemory, and identity in relation to older South Asian migrant women and memories of partition in the UK.   

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): excavating collective memory through embodied engagements with performance and place.  

Contributors:  

Dr Lindsey Dodd is a Reader in Modern European History in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.   

Dr Ben Spatz is a Reader in Media and Performance in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.   

www.urbanresearchtheater.com   

Guest speaker:   

Dr Nafhesa Ali is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Northumbria. 

Further information:    

Ben Spatz and Lindsey Dodd with Paula Kolar (2022) Postmemory in the North. [printed exhibition programme] http://urbanresearchtheater.com/urt17/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Postmemory-zine.pdf   

Postmemory in the North [blogpost] 

https://holocaustlearning.org.uk/latest/postmemory-in-the-north-ben-spatz/ 

The Judaica Project 

www.urbanresearchtheater.com/judaica     

Holocaust Centre North   

TBC

Occupying the upstairs space of Dai Hall, Stellatrix created an immersive environment in which sound is created from the light of stars. Radiophonic pieces explored possible and imagined connections between the mezzo scale, in which the experience of space takes place, and the micro-macro scales involved in stellar evolution.  

Stellatrix consists of a ‘m*e*s*h*’ of sound and visual pieces reflecting our experiential, exploratory and poetic relation to the cosmos and the shared sky. During the exhibition, visitors were invited to explore in the artists' desk: the mind maps of the compositions linking music and astronomy; the software used to create the sonic compositions; and to participate in a new episode of the Exotronic Fields Podcast by experimenting with the connections between sound poetry and stellar evolution.   

A talk by guest speaker, Dr Catherine Walsh, explored the chemical origins of life, from the emergence of the universe to the present day.  

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): creating new modes of thinking through our relationship with, and experience, of the cosmos. 

Contributors: 

Angela Hoyoz Gomez is a PhD candidate in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Juan Hernández is a PhD candidate in the School of Music, University of Leeds. 

Guest speaker: 

Dr Catherine Walsh is an Associate Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds 

Further information: 

Angela Hoyoz Gomez and Juan Hernandez create and perform together as Ulrica Duo  

https://ulricaweb.net/ 

The Dai Hall is run by ame (art music experiment) C.I.C, an artist-collective organisation supporting contemporary music and art in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. 

https://amespace.uk/about/  

The Huddersfield Astronomical Society was formed in 1968 and has been helping people discover the wonders of the universe ever since. 

 https://huddersfieldastronomy.org/ 

[Re]imagining Huddersfield’s Narratives through Culture-Led Regeneration Projects was an exhibition and workshop that aimed to generate and disseminate ideas and design proposals around culture-led regeneration in Huddersfield. 

The exhibition in Queensgate Indoor Market showcased first year projects from BA (Hons) Architecture and second year BA (Hons) Interior Design students. The projects explored design briefs responding to the context of Huddersfield through the common thread of art and culture, providing speculations on the potential of culture-led regeneration projects. The project briefs included: a visitor centre, a book shop, a video games museum, pavilions for the local parks, pods for tourism, as well as small scale experiential interventions which respond to and communicate information about specific elements of the context, heritage and communities within the town of Huddersfield.  

The workshop brought together different perspectives from students, academic researchers and members of the public in the Create Lab, Barbara Hepworth Building, and took inspiration from the exhibition and on-site visits around Huddersfield. This created an opportunity for participants to exchange ideas and generate reflections about the building and places around the town centre, and to consider how artistic and cultural activities can trigger and support new narratives for the town and its communities. 

Research approach to place (Making Place): exploring cultural regeneration through speculative design projects.  

Contributors: 

Dr Danilo Di Mascio is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, researcher, registered architect (ARB).  

Claire Diggle is a Lecturer of Interior Design in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Further information:  

https://www.instagram.com/i_d_hud/ 

https://www.instagram.com/architecture_hud/ 

Further reading:  

Di Mascio, D. (Ed.) (2021). Envisioning Architectural Narratives: Monograph of the 15th Biennial International Conference of the European Architectural Envisioning Association. University of Huddersfield. https://doi.org/10.34696/xc3n-d030 

Singing in the Dark was a subterranean sound installation in the downstairs space of Dai Hall in The Piazza Shopping Centre. It presented investigations on sonic interventions in horticulture through the local tradition of rhubarb forcing.  

In West Yorkshire, there is a longstanding heritage of growing rhubarb plants in the dark as part of a process known as forcing. After two years outside accumulating energy from sunlight, rhubarb plants are moved into warm, dark sheds to encourage starch production and growth. Forcing the rhubarb to grow in darkness causes it to perform arithmetical energy calculations to regulate its sucrose in the absence of sunlight. The chemicals produced as part of this process make the rhubarb plants grow tall and sweet, acquiring their distinctive pink colour. Overproduction of this chemical energy is released as acoustic energy, creating a sound that is as unique as their colour and flavour.  

For this multi-sensory installation, the artists created a composition using recordings from rhubarb sheds and the sine waves that are used to stimulate plant growth. The sounds were recorded in Robert Tomlinson’s forcing sheds in Pudsey, West Yorkshire. A rhubarb plant grows, aided by acoustic invigoration and LED lights, while the audience can enjoy the acoustic manifestations in a chair vibrating at the frequencies at which the roots of the rhubarb plant perceive sound.  

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): thinking ecologically about cultural traditions through acoustic explorations with more-than-human collaborators. 

Contributors: 

Dr David Vélez is a Colombian artist who was awarded his PhD in 2021 from the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Ruchi Singh is a doctoral candidate in the Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield.  

Duncan Chapman is a Lincoln based, freelance Composer, Sound Artist, Educator and Performer. 

http://www.duncanchapman.org/ 

Further information:  

Forced Rhubarb Sound Recordings: https://davidvelez.bandcamp.com/album/singing-in-the-dark-the-sounds-of-forced-rhubarb  

The Dai Hall is run by ame (art music experiment) C.I.C, an artist-collective organisation supporting contemporary music and art in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. 

https://amespace.uk/about/  

Further reading:  

Velez, D. (2022) Ethical and Aesthetic Considerations on Rêvolutions by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. Sonic Field [online publication] https://sonicfield.org/revolutions-by-celeste-boursier-mougenot/ 

Velez, D. (2022) FOTOSÍNTESIS, COOPERACIÓN Y VIBRACIÓN: ESCUCHANDO JUNTO A LAS PLANTA [online publication (in spanish)] https://tsonamiediciones.cl/fotosintesis-cooperacion-y-vibracion-escuchando-junto-a-las-plantas/  

Vélez Rodríguez, David (2021) Sonic Art and the Acoustics of Food: Examining culinary sounds to understand resistance. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35656/ 

The Sustainable Living Environments and Cultures of Place symposium celebrated the launch of the new Sustainable Living Research Centre at the University of Huddersfield. The symposium brought together international collaborators to consider sustainable living rooted in the context of different spaces and places, from Huddersfield and beyond. An accompanying exhibition in the Piazza showcased research posters on sustainable architecture and design from around the world. 

Recognising the urgent need for new technological developments that will impact new and existing infrastructure in an era of climate change, the symposium invited contributors to consider the socio-cultural effects of these changes. Key themes included: sustainable architecture and urban development; the use of digital technologies in the built environment; the social geography of sustainable living; sustainable tourism and transport development; and responsible leadership for the climate emergency.  

List of papers and contributors 

A Gamified Participatory Design Process that Can Support Urban Regeneration in the Era of Metaverse- Bing Chen. 

Dr. Bing Chen is an Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Design at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU).  

Can Kirklees create warm sustainable homes- Matthew Tulley. 

Matthew Tulley is a chartered mechanical engineer and businessman. He is a director of Zero Carbon Yorkshire and a low carbon living practitioner. 

Creating sustainable masterplan for the climate emergency- Joe Jack William. 

Dr. Joe Jack Williams is an Associate and Researcher at the Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. 

Cultures of Place: Creating the Conditions for Quality of Life and Learning on the High Street- Rowan Bailey and Claire Booth-Kurpnieks.  

Dr Rowan Bailey is a Reader in Culture Practice, Director of Graduate Education in the School of Arts and Humanities and Director of the Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture. Dr. Claire Booth-Kurpnieks is a Research Fellow for the Cultures of Place programme in the School of Arts & Humanities, University of Huddersfield 

Huddersfield’s Future Mobility Lab: From Driverless Cars to Sustainable Mobility- Alexandros Nikitas. 

Dr Alexandros Nikitas is a Reader in Smart Transport in the Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield and Founding Director of the Future Mobility Lab. 

Reimaging Community Recreational Open Spaces for Outdoor Well-being: a Case Study of a Populous Area in Beijing -Ben Hao, Hanwen Liao, Tengfei Zhao.  

Ben Hao is a postgraduate student currently studying towards a MSc in Urban and Rural Planning at Beijing University of Technology. Dr. Hanwen Liao is an Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of Architecture, Beijing University of Technology. Dr. Tengfei Zhao is a lecturer of the Department of Architecture, Beijing University of Technology. 

Sustainable Living Behaviour: A Case Study of UK Music Festival Attendees- Jialin (Snow) Wu and Hannah Stafford. 

Dr. Jialin (Snow) Wu is a Senior Lecturer at University of Huddersfield Business School. Hannah Stafford is a graduate student in BA (Hons) Events Management, University of Huddersfield. 

Imaged identities: Exploring the Sustainable Ethnic Tourism Development in Mosuo Villages in Southwest China- Huichao Feng and Jieling Xiao. 

Dr Huichao Feng is a Lecturer of Environmental Design at the School of Art and Design of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. Dr Jieling Xiao is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Design at the School of Architecture and Design of Birmingham City University. 

The Living Traditions of Sustainable Living: Learning from Vernacular Architecture and Settlements in Underrepresented Asian Geographies- Xiang Ren, Omid Ebrahimbaysalami, Xiaolu Wang, Abhishek Bhutoria. 

Dr Xiang Ren is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. Omid Ebrahimbaysalami, Xialou Wang and Abishek Bhutoria are doctoral students in Architecture at the University of Sheffield.  

Sustainable Living for Communities with Dual Urban-rural Characteristics: Two Urban Villages in Southwest China - Yun Gao, Adrian Pitts, Ling Zhou  

Dr Yun Gao is a Reader in Architecture, Director of Sustainable Living Research Centre; Professor Adrian Pitts is the Professor of Sustainable Architecture, and Director of Research Centre for Urban Design Architecture and Sustainability Ling Zhou is a PhD candidate in the School of Arts & Humanities, University of Huddersfield 

Further information: 

Sustainable Living Research Centre 

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/organisations/sustainable-living-research-centre   

Research approach to place (Making Place): presenting multiple disciplinary and international perspectives on the sustainable making of places. 

Synthetic Spaces II: Hyperreal Huddersfield is part of an ongoing body of work to use advanced spatial surveying tools to document the spaces of Huddersfield and develop new narrative modes of engagement with those spaces. The project marks the second phase of the ‘Synthetic Spaces’ project that was exhibited in 2019 in the Market Gallery as part of the Temporary Contemporary initiative. In Synthetic Spaces, Clear and Park explore how Huddersfield’s architectural fabric can be represented using scanning technology to non-specialist audiences through immersive video projections and digital drawings.  

The interior space of Queensgate Indoor Market is both the subject and location of this exhibition. 

Scanned, layered, reflected and refracted to create an immersive virtual architecture that speculates upon the hidden and unseen aspects of Huddersfield’s urban space. Presented as a ‘mixed reality’ and multi-sensory installation, visitors to the exhibition were able to immerse themselves in these new spatial narratives through a VR experience, accompanied by an immersive sound experience captured by Dr Hyunkook Lee. 

Research approach to place (Making Place): creating new architectural narrative formations for Huddersfield through 3D scanning and VR technology.  

Contributors: 

Professor Nic Clear is a Professor of Architecture and is the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Hyun Jun Park is a Lecturer in Architectural Visualization in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Hyunkook Lee is a Reader in Music Technology in the School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfield  

Further reading:  

Clear, N., Park, H. J. (Eds.). (2021) Architecture and Science Fiction [Special issue] AIS - Architecture Image Studies, 2 (1). https://journals.ap2.pt/index.php/AIS/issue/view/36 

Clear, N. (2020) Synthetic Spaces: The Digital Exploration of Three Sites in Huddersfield [Practice Research Folio] https://research.hud.ac.uk/media/assets/document/research/ceada/NicClear-SytheticSpaces-web.pdf  

Clear, N., Park, H. J. (eds) (2020) Narrative Architecture, AIS- Architecture Image Studies, 1 (2). https://journals.ap2.pt/index.php/AIS/issue/view/24  

Since the industrial revolution, Huddersfield and the wider region of Kirklees has been known for the manufacture of fine worsted wool textiles. A ‘Made in Huddersfield’ selvedge is synonymous with quality, but textiles activity in Huddersfield is not limited to historic industrial production. The Textiles: Made in Huddersfield exhibition shifts focus from the heritage and industry of the region and considers textiles as a mode of enquiry. Utilising both traditional hand techniques and the cutting-edge textiles technology available to researchers at the University of Huddersfield, the exhibition features projects that creatively push the boundaries of textiles outside of industrial expectations. 

Through showcasing the textiles research practices of the community of staff and students at the University of Huddersfield, the exhibition explores textiles as a storytelling device; as a way to bring people together; or as a tool for observation and reflection. Some of the research projects draw from the landscape in and around Kirklees, a mode of creative inquiry rooted in the specificity of this place in particular. Others engage communities of practice, developing routes for communication and exchange between practitioners locally and internationally generating new understandings of place. In the exhibition, visitors were invited to participate in the research projects through participatory drawing and stitch activities. 

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): showcasing different modes of engaging with place through creative textiles practices. 

Contributors: 

Dr Jade Lord (curator) is a Senior Lecturer in Textiles in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield. 

Work by staff and students including: 

Claire Barber (Senior Lecturer in Textiles Practice), Leigh Bowser (textile artist and educator), Amy Chen (Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles), Louisa Crompton (MA Textiles student), Charlotte Goldthorpe (Senior Lecturer and Course Leader), Preethi Ravichandran (MRes in textiles practice), Elinor Sykes (Knit Technician), Elnaz Yazdani (MRes in textiles practice).  

Further information: 

Textiles in Huddersfield  

https://www.instagram.com/hudtextiles/  

Conan Doyle, Houdini and the Davenport Brothers: Huddersfield Connections presented an evening of performances and discussion exploring the relationships between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini and the American spiritualists The Davenport Brothers and their connection to Huddersfield.  All had presented supernatural entertainments to the people of Huddersfield in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  

The opening monologue, written and performed by Nik Taylor, told the story of one night in 1865, when the European tour of William and Ira Davenport and their ‘spirit cabinet’ came to perform at the Philosophical Hall in Huddersfield. Plagued by controversies, arguments and riots the Davenports were chased out of town by skeptical and disgruntled locals.  

The following one act play, written by Merrick Burrow and directed by Nik Taylor, staged an imagined encounter in which the spirits of Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Davenport Brothers were summoned back to Huddersfield for one last performance, exploring the psychic controversies between Doyle and Houdini and the legacy of the Davenports spirit cabinet.   

For the final act of the evening the writers and performers were joined by Todd Landman, Stuart Nolan, and Careena Fenton for a panel discussion on the tangled issues of performance magic, spiritualism and deception.  

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): materialising and contextualising local historical events through theatrical re-enactment and magic performance. 

Contributors: 

Dr Merrick Burrow is the Subject Leader for English & History Writing in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.   

Dr Nik Taylor is the Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield. 

www.niktaylor.co.uk    

Guest speakers: Andy Cooper, Careena Fenton-Cullen, Professor Todd Landman, Stuart Nolan  

Performers: Luke Robson (Harry Houdini), Adelina Sewell (Delicia Freeman), Paul Voodini (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) 

Further information: 

Conan Doyle, Houdini, and the Davenport Brothers: Huddersfield Connections [online blogpost] 

https://niktaylor.co.uk/conan-doyle-houdini-and-the-davenport-brothers-huddersfield-connections/    

The Cottingley Fairies: A study in deception [online exhibition curated by Merrick Burrow] https://artsandculture.google.com/story/lgVB6Ceti9WVAw   

Further reading:  

Burrow, M. (2013). Conan Doyle's gothic materialism. Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 35(3), 309-323. https://doi.org/10.1080/08905495.2013.806698  

Taylor, N. (2015). Impersonating spirits: The paranormal entertainer and the dramaturgy of the gothic séance. In L. Piatti-Farnell, & D. L. Brien (Eds.), New Directions in 21st Century Gothic: The Gothic Compass. Routledge.  

Taylor, N. (2018). Magic and Broken Knowledge; Reflections on the practice of Bizarre Magick. Journal of Performance Magic, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5920/jpm.2018.03  

The Great Huddersfield Song Swap was an auditory intervention in Huddersfield town centre. During the Cultures of Place festival, it took over the playlist broadcasting through the speakers of the Piazza Shopping Centre and Queensgate Indoor Market. The songs were gathered from members of the public in the Piazza over a weekend. Passers-by were invited to swap a song for the playlist, first listening to the song that had been left by the previous person, and then offering their song in return: the song they couldn’t live without. The contributed songs came from across Europe, Asia and North America, and varied in genre ranging from experimental pianists, to classic rock to pop; but each song on the playlist has special meaning to someone, attached to memories and emotions, people and places. The varied genres offered ranged from experimental pianists, to classic rock to pop, but each song on the playlist has special meaning to someone, attached to memories and emotions. 

The community generated song swap replaced the usual and ubiquitous backdrop of music streaming into the public space of The Piazza for the duration of the festival. It changed the atmosphere of the space. As people walked around, going about their daily activities- shopping, meeting friends for coffee, dropping kids off at art club - the mood shifted from joyful to rebellious, poignant to pensive. A moment of connection between strangers may take place as a song provokes a moment of recognition, a memory or a smile. In this context our relationship to place is transformed by acts of giving, receiving and connection in public space.  

Research approach to place (Making Place): creating a new sense of place in Huddersfield town centre through a community generated sound intervention. 

Contributors:  

Dr Dave Calvert is an independent scholar, researcher, theatre practitioner, writer and performer.  

Further Information: 

Song Swap Playlist:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCib0B8T24&list=PLusoXF01vOXYeuqgnek5hb-dexzV4so_h

Further Reading: 

Calvert, D (2013) ‘Royal Pierrots’ and ‘White Coons’: the British Pierrot Troupe in the Racial and National Imaginary’ New Theatre Quarterly, 29 (2), pp. 107-120. ISSN 0266-464X 

Calvert, D. (2020). Convivial theatre: Care and debility in collaborations between non-disabled and learning disabled theatre makers. In A. Stuart Fisher, & J. Thompson (Eds.), Performing Care: New Perspectives on Socially Engaged Performance (pp. 85-102). Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526146816.00014 

The University Colour Garden was developed by postgraduate researchers Kayleigh Davis and Elnaz Yazdani, in partnership with WOVEN in Kirklees textiles festival.  Growing Colour Together is a WOVEN project and has ambitions to create district-wide natural dye colour gardens. Davis and Yazdani have established a colour garden allotment on the University of Huddersfield campus; as a place of respite and wellbeing the University Colour Garden also offers itself up as a resource and incubator for research and practice.   

For Cultures of Place Davis and Yazdani brought examples of their work to display inside Queensgate Indoor market garden and explored different techniques of natural dyeing and embroidery with members of the community through a series of public workshops. Members of the public were introduced to textile techniques and created a sense of place through the sharing of knowledge and skills.   

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): learning about natural dyeing and communities of practice through growing and making.  

Contributors: 

Kayleigh Davis is a natural dye textile artist and doctoral candidate in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield. 

www.craftscouncil.org.uk/directory/ocre   

Elnaz Yazdani is an embroidery artist and educator undertaking a Masters by Research in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield.  

https://www.elnazyazdani.com/   

Further Information:  

WOVEN in Kirklees is a biannual textiles festival that celebrates innovation in textiles across Kirklees. 

https://woveninkirklees.co.uk/   

Growing Colour Together 

https://woveninkirklees.co.uk/projects/growing-colour-together/   

Further Reading: 

Bailey, R. & Walton, N. (2022) The Big Rainbow Knit: Revisiting Craftivist Practices through Place-Based Making, TEXTILE, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2022.2102731 

The Yorkshire Robin Hood project explored the relationship of the legend to the Huddersfield area through an exhibition and symposium highlighting the abundance of evidence linking Robin Hood to Yorkshire.  The exhibition, curated by  staff and students in English Literature and History, showcased archival materials about the medieval Robin Hood ballads and their evolution into illustrated Victorian/Edwardian children’s books, and later into contemporary depictions of Robin Hood in TV and film. 

This was addressed in a symposium with talks by Todd Borlik and Alex Brown (University of Durham). Presentations were delivered on fifteenth century ballads related to the exploits of Robin Hood, alongside the history and medieval social contexts of the North of England. This was followed with a coach-trip to Kirklees Priory, to Robin Hood’s grave. This is a site not usually open to the public and provided an opportunity for people to tour the medieval gatehouse and grave site where Robin Hood allegedly died and was buried.    

Research approach to place (Making Place): uncovering and exploring local histories through archival investigation and site visits.  

Contributors: 

Dr Todd Andrew Borlik is Reader in Renaissance Literature in the School of Arts and Humanities,  University of Huddersfield.  

Professor Katherine Lewis is a Professor of Medieval History in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

Guest speaker:  

Dr Alex Brown is an Associate Professor of Medieval History at Durham University.   

Further Information:  

Kirklees Priory and the site of Robin Hood’s grave can only be accessed on a pre-arranged tour with Calderdale Heritage Walks https://calderdaleheritagewalks.org.uk/atrium.html 

Further Reading:  

Hodgson, N. R., Lewis, K., Mesley, M. M. (Eds.) (2019) Crusading and Masculinities. London: Routledge  

Lewis, K. J. (2013). Kingship and Masculinity in late Medieval England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203795859 

Borlik, T. (Ed.) (2019). Literature and Nature in the English Renaissance: An Ecocritical Anthology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108224901  

Borlik, T (2011). Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature: Green Pastures. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203819241 

Welcome to Rat Catcher's School for Good Dogs Tennis Club by Dale Holmes was an exhibition of new works created for a solo presentation at Huddersfield Art Gallery as part of Cultures of Place. It included an editioned suite of 13 Riso prints of felt pen drawings, a site-specific painting measuring 1000cm x 300cm, rugs, a floor based sculptural drawing, tracksuits and sweatshirts, and a commissioned text from writer Jamie Sutcliffe. 

The works are discrete entry points into themes as wide ranging as psylocibin fungus, drystone walls, Folk Horror, medieval myths - The Pied Piper of Hamlyn in particular - and the graphic language of anthropomorphised animals in manuscript marginalia. The phenomenon of dance plagues across Northern Europe and a potential mythopoesis of sportswear in the contemporary streetwear cultures of Northern towns is brought together through hybridising approaches to materials, forms and making processes.  

Research approach to place (Cultures of Making): presenting different ways of understanding the rural and vernacular through new cultural formations.  

Contributor: 

Dr Dale Holmes is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Illustration in the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.  

http://www.daleholmes.co.uk/  

Further information: 

Huddersfield Art Gallery has temporarily relocated to Unit 7 in the Piazza Shopping Centre whilst significant building works take place on the current Library and Art Gallery building.   

Huddersfield Art Gallery: Unit 7 continues to deliver an acclaimed and vibrant temporary exhibitions programme, featuring established and emerging artists.  

Further reading: 

Sutcliffe, J. (2022) Obscure Rodent Manifestations: On Dale Holmes https://www.daleholmes.co.uk/on-dale-holmes 

Holmes, D (2020) Material Conjectures presents Abandoned Temporary Crisis Facility [Practice Research Folio] https://research.hud.ac.uk/media/assets/document/research/ceada/DaleHolmes-MaterialConjectures-web.pdf 

Holmes, D (2020) The New Aspidistra (3,715 Minutes/1,488.94 Kilometres/39,680 Calories) [Practice Research Folio]  https://research.hud.ac.uk/media/assets/document/research/ceada/DaleHolmes-TheNewAspidistra-web.pdf