Test Pit
Tuesday 17th May, 5.30pm | Lecture Theater, School of Art, Margaret Street, Birmingham City University
Contributors:
Becky Shaw - Artist and course leader BA Art Practice Sheffield Hallam University.
Rob le Frenais - Director of The Arts Catalyst, London.
Dr Helen Wickstead – Senior academic at Kingston University, archaeologist and artistic collaborator with Janet Hodgson senior Lecturer B.I.A.D.
In archaeology, a test-pit is a rapid, rough and ready, investigation technique. This simple breaking of ground is the starting point for many ambitious life-long explorations. Taking the idea of test-pitting as the inspiration, this seminar will provide a rapid, rough and ready, opportunity to explore issues surrounding interdisciplinary practice.
The event will last for an hour and a half with each participant giving a short introduction to an aspect of their practice which in some way demonstrates, complicates or questions current issues in interdisciplinary practice, followed by a round table discussion
Possible questions we might consider include:
How do disciplines learn from one another (ways of working, looking, questioning, recording, networking)?
Are there models for success, and if so, how might these differ between disciplines / contexts?
What are the risks of interdisciplinary, and on whom do they fall?
How do relations of power and authority operate in these scenarios?
What gets funded / recorded / shown, and to whom?
How visible are interdisciplinary projects across disciplines?
Who is interested in this sort of work, and what networks exist?
Previous Events
- Test Pit
- Manual Setting
- Earthscapes: Geology + Geography Seminar
- Touchstone
- Stonehenge Riverside: The Ventral Surface
- Another Proof of the Preceding Theory Screening at the Herzliya Biennale
- Ventriloquist
- Art and Archaeology Seminar
- Simon Callery Field Drawings
- Drawing Stonehenge
- Virtual World Exhibition: Stonehenge Riverside Project 2007 Artist Residencies
- Site Specific: Between Archaeologists and Artists
- Some Time Now
- Interferences - High Moorland Visitor Centre, 2006
- Interferences - offiCina, Beijing, China, 2006
- The Big Draw
- Shovel Down National Archaeology Week 2005
- The UCL Big Draw Event
Publications
- Documenting the Past - Cheshire Life Article, November 2008
- Drawing from the Past
- Drawing Time - British Archaeology Magazine Article
- South of Woodhenge. An Interim Report on the 2007 excavations
- Land Division and identity in Later Prehistoric Dartmoor, South-West Britain
- Recent Approaches to the Archaeology of Land Allotment
- Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK
- Drawing: The Purpose
- Theorising Tenure: A Landscape Analysis of Later Prehistoric Dartmoor
- Summary Report of the 2004 Excavations and Survey at Shovel Down
- Summary Report of the 2003 Excavations and Survey at Shovel Down
- Excavations of Bronze Age field systems, Shovel Down, Dartmoor, 2003