As a skeptical young archaeologist back in the early 1980s I was fascinated by the connections between archaeology and photography, in archaeology’s project of documenting the remains of the past. Skeptical – I thought, and still do, that archaeology’s long links with the identity politics of nationalism and colonialism and its role in the growing…
cultural politics
Olympics opening – (in)tangible heritage
London – the opening of the 30th Olympiad A bucolic pastoral green and pleasant land succumbing to dark satanic mills, in William Blake’s vision, homage also to Tolkein’s pitting of Hobbiton against Isengard’s tower; Shakespeare’s Tempest declaimed by Brunel on the slopes of a druidic oak-toppped Glastonbury Tor; dreams of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins;…
time-space distanciation – past and present
We were out last night with friends. The water at the local restaurant in Palo Alto – imported from Wales, bottled in the squire’s house, Llanllyr, in the village of Talsarn, where we once lived (next to the house where Dylan Thomas wrote “Under Milk Wood”), before we moved to California.
against cultural property – heritage as design – and wellbeing
My argument [Link] that heritage is a matter of creativity and design – work done with, typically, remains of the past (tangible and intangible) – involves an argument that heritage should not be conceived as cultural property. I made this point, though rather weakly, in my entry on cultural property for The Oxford Companion to…
critical heritage as design
To continue the argument from my previous posts – [Link] [Link] – that heritage, the (legacy) of the past in the present, is best conceived as a process of working on the past in the present – as a process of design. I have just returned from a trip to Göteborg, that most wonderfully open…
public and private
Dublin. Buswell’s. I have been waiting for it to happen. I take photos of the textures of everyday life. Everyday life is under challenge. Ireland is on the brink of ruin. “We are back to the old three ‘Ps’ Michael”, someone says to me – “Pints, Ponies … and I can’t remember the third” ……
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