Walking Tour with Dr Helen Smith, Prof. John Provis & Ilona Sagar

Fri 15 Nov
2 - 4pm
S1 Artspace Book tickets

Starting at S1 Artspace, a walking conversation exploring the social and cultural history of industrial and post-war Sheffield within its contemporary context. Dr Helen Smith is a social and cultural historian from Sheffield, whose research looks at the relationship between industry, architecture and identity. Prof. John Provis’ specialist knowledge of materials science will provide a unique insight into the materiality of our cities and how it impacts the way we live and inhabit our shared environments.

The walk will be informal and conversational, troubling the encounter with materials and (post)industrial landscapes, and will question our subjective and embodied relationship to archives and their after-image. The walk will last approx. 90 mins allowing the city to slowly transition from day to night.

Dr Helen Smith is a social and cultural historian who specialises in histories of class, gender, sexuality and region. She has a particular interest in Sheffield and its people, which began with researching her book, Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895-1957. Although she works at the University of Lincoln, she still lives in Sheffield and is currently working on how to tell more local stories to challenge a British history that is often focussed on London.

John Provis is Professor of Cement Materials Science and Engineering, and Head of the Engineering Graduate School, University of Sheffield. He began his career studying mathematics and chemical engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia, followed by a PhD and a research fellowship at the same institution. He has been a Professor at the University of Sheffield since 2012, leading the Cements@Sheffield research team with a focus on cement science for sustainable construction and the safe treatment of wastes from various industries. He has published more than 400 journal and conference papers, been a member of technical working parties for the United Nations Environment Programme and for the International Atomic Energy Agency, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Materials and Structures.

Ilona Sagar lives and works in London. Using a diverse range of media spanning performance, film and sound installation, she has formed a body of work which responds to the social and historical context found in the public and private spaces we inhabit. Sagar’s practice is developed in a cross-disciplinary dialogue with a range of art and scientific disciplines including dance, architecture and neurology. Forthcoming solo commissions include: Serpentine Gallery, London and a residency at Uniarts, Helsinki. Her film ‘Correspondence O’ (2017) won an AHRC Research in Film Award in 2018. Recent projects include: ‘Living with Buildings’, Wellcome Collection, London (2018/2019); ‘Self Service’ publication and event series, CCA and GOMA, Glasgow as part of Glasgow International (2018); ‘Correspondence O’, solo exhibition at South London Gallery, London (2017/2018).

Please see full Press Release.

Data Bodies, Social Objects

Wed 27 Nov
4:30 - 5.30pm
S1 Artspace Book tickets

A panel discussion between artist Ilona Sagar, Alex Taylor (Human-Computer Interaction Design, City University) and Laura Vaughan (Space Syntax Laboratory at The Bartlett , UCL).

The panel will explore methods of observation and analysis, kinship, human computation and social mapping. Discussing how these are infused in the often slippery and surprisingly human nature of data and surveying technologies that describes the space in between building, landscape and community.

Alex Taylor is a Sociologist and Co-Director of the Centre for Human-Centred Interaction Design at City, University of London. With a fascination for the entanglements between social life and machines, his research ranges from empirical studies of technology in everyday life to speculative design interventions. He draws on feminist technoscience to ask questions about the roles human-machine composites play in forms of knowing and being, and how they open up possibilities for fundamental transformations in society.
Discover more of his work via his blog and twitter.

Laura Vaughan is Professor of Urban Form and Society and Director of the Space Syntax Laboratory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. She has led a number of interdisciplinary research projects that consider some of the most critical aspects of cities today, ranging from ethnic segregation and health, poverty and housing, to economic and social vitality. Her book,Mapping Society: The Spatial Dimensions of Social Cartography, was published open access with UCL Press in 2018.
Discover more about her work via her blog and twitter.

Ilona Sagar lives and works in London. Using a diverse range of media spanning performance, film and sound installation, she has formed a body of work which responds to the social and historical context found in the public and private spaces we inhabit. Sagar’s practice is developed in a cross-disciplinary dialogue with a range of art and scientific disciplines including dance, architecture and neurology. Forthcoming solo commissions include: Serpentine Gallery, London and a residency at Uniarts, Helsinki. Her film ‘Correspondence O’ (2017) won an AHRC Research in Film Award in 2018. Recent projects include: ‘Living with Buildings’, Wellcome Collection, London (2018/2019); ‘Self Service’ publication and event series, CCA and GOMA, Glasgow as part of Glasgow International (2018); ‘Correspondence O’, solo exhibition at South London Gallery, London (2017/2018).

Click for full details.

Soft Power, Care and the Commons

Thur 12 Dec
6:30 - 7.30pm
S1 Artspace Book tickets

An independent report in 2013* highlighted significant health inequalities within Sheffield. The life expectancy reported for men falls by nearly 8 years and almost 10 years for women across the length of the 83 bus route which links Millhouses in the south with Ecclesfield in the north. As Ilona Sagar’s Deep Structure film draws links between bodies and buildings, health and environments, this discussion will look at how care is situated within our communities, its social reproduction and how it is determined by guidelines developed from statistics and data.

*Sheffield Fairness Commission 2013

Guests include – former and current resident of Park Hill, Joanne Marsden, who established the Park Hill young mothers action group; Howard Humphries, former resident and Youth Courts social worker; Jack Czauderna, a former GP who ran a co-operative GP practice in the 1970s near Park Hill and current Chair of Darnall Wellbeing; and Dr Julia Udall, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University, whose research is in community organising and the urban commons.

Dr Julia Udall, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University, teaches across the M.Arch Course, and undergraduate history and theory. She is a director of the UKs first Social Enterprise architecture practice, Studio Polpo. Her research interests include urban commons, community economies and organising, and design pedagogy.

Jack Czauderna was a GP in Darnall in the East End of Sheffield all his working life. In the early 1980’s it ran as an equal pay collective, one of three in the country. Later under different political circumstances the practice became one of the first all salaried practices in the country. Like Tony Benn who retired from being an MP to devote more time to ‘politics’, Jack retired from being a GP to devote more time to ‘health’. He set up Darnall Wellbeing, a community health and wellbeing group to run alongside his practice and he continues this work in the Darnall community. He is also the Chair of the Pioneer Health Foundation which keeps alive the legacy of the famous ‘Peckham Experiment’.

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Forthcoming Events

More to be announced