Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Onderdeel van Reisalbum met foto's van bezienswaardigheden in Napels en omgeving (c) Giorgio Sommer (attributed to).

You are here

  1. Home
  2. Open Ecologies
  3. Events

Events

Our developing programme is below – please check back for updates. We are interested in drawing together a rich array of topics and methods, so do please contact Dr Lindsay Polly Crisp if there is a project you might like to present to the group, especially if it has relevance to the themes below, or if you would like to attend.

Apr 15

Cities and Urban Nature

Monday 15 April 2024, 13:00-14:00

Online

Convenors: Lindsay Polly Crisp

In this lunchtime seminar, we will investigate encounters with nature in urban spaces. Andy Morris, Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer, Geography and Environmental Studies, considers the entangled lives of hundreds of thousands of winter roosting starlings and the human inhabitants of central Rome. Dan Robinson, Program Leader, Photography, Moving Image & Short Courses, Open College of the Arts (OCA), will introduce two interventions in teaching about and through place. As ever, this will be an informal session with plenty of opportunity for exploratory and cross-disciplinary discussion - we hope you will come along and contribute if you can. For more information, please click on the title above.

May 15

Teaching in the Anthropocene

Wednesday May 15, 2024, 13:00-16:00

In-person and online

Convenor: Sam Shaw

This longer event will bring together transdisciplinary experiences and reflections on teaching Sustainability and the Environment at the Open University. Programme to follow.

Jun 12

Open Discussion

Wednesday 12 June 2024, 13:00-14:00

Online

Convenors: George Revill and Lindsay Polly Crisp

This unprogrammed lunchtime session will provide a space to reflect on the work of Open Ecologies over the past year, share news and updates, and make plans for the year to come.

Past Events

Open Ecologies Cambridge Gathering

1st March 2024

This in-person gathering provided an opportunity for group members from across faculties and disciplines to get together in person to exchange ideas and make plans, with visits to the Polar Museum and Cambridge Botanic Garden.

Reading group: ‘Arctic Dreams’ (Barry Lopez, 1986)

14th February 2024

Convenors: Sam Shaw and Lindsay Polly Crisp

In this reading group session we will focus on the Epilogue from Arctic Dreams by the nature writer Barry Lopez, introduced by Sam Shaw (Lecturer in Art History). For more information, please click on the title above.

Citizen Art and Science

15th November 2023

Convenor: Carla Benzan

In this participatory workshop we will imagine new ways of working in ecologically informed ways in public education in the arts and sciences. We’ll be looking more closely at identifying methodological synergies and ways forward to form the basis for a funding bid in 2024. Click on the title above for more information.

Living

18th October 2023

Convenors: George Revill and Lindsay Polly Crisp

This seminar will introduce work that hinges in different ways on the theme of living. Dr Kadmiel Maseyk (Senior Lecturer in Environmental Sciences) will discuss the use of a Living Lab for nature recovery education, engagement and research, on the Open University campus in Milton Keynes, and Professor Graham Harvey (Emeritus Professor in Religious Studies) will connect the theme of ‘living’ with new materialism, animacy and thriving. Click on the title above to read the abstracts.

Citizen Art and Science

17th May 2023

This seminar, with Christian Nold (Design) and Carla Benzan (Art History), will reflect on the ways in which 'citizen science' and creative practice intersect across historical and contemporary contexts.

Agri-cultures

8th February 2023

In this seminar, Dr Lucy Dablin (Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability) and Dr Amy Jane Barnes (Staff Tutor and Lecturer, Art History) will introduce work that hinges in different ways on sustainable forms of agriculture.

Arachno-philia

18th January 2023

Work-in-progress seminar, presented by Theodora Philcox (Engineering and Innovation).

Assemblages and Ecologies

16th November 2022

At this session, Dr Lindsay Polly Crisp (Staff Tutor and Lecturer, Art History) and Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett (Senior Lecturer, Religious Studies) will discuss how their work has been shaped by assemblage theory, an account of the world as characterised by relationality, connection, and change.