Archaeological shores: reflections on a metaphysics of cartography

Field notes. The pragmatics of an archaeological sensibility — what might one do in an archaeological visit to the beach? For as long as I can remember maps have made me anxious. Where does one draw the line of a coast, a road, a river? In archaeological excavation one is regularly required to document, record,…

a pilgrimage in search of deep time

Jedburgh, just off Dere Street, Scottish Borders. On the Berwickshire coast at Siccar Point James Hutton found an exposure of the sandstone, shales and greywacke, with the strata of the sedimentary rocks lying at an angle to each other – what is now called an unconformity. Another, inland at Inchbonny by Jedburgh, is now known…

What is (of our) human making?

I have joined the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam as part of a new exhibition program. This extraordinary museum [Link] holds the largest collection of contemporary art in the Netherlands. Experiments in temporary and often provocative exhibitions, rather than permanent displays of the collection, are the museum’s specialty, and it runs over twenty a…