Dr. John Scanlan is pleased to launch a new publication, Spirits of Place, co-edited by John and Katie Milestone of Manchester Metropolitan University, and designed by Vicky Carr of Textbook Studio.
The publication is an outcome of a coach trip and workshop John organised in the summer of 2023, inviting stakeholders and artists to visit two locations within the 'new' Cumberland to mark the creation of the newly formed council area. The event was intended to stimulate conversation on two contrasting places, opposite ends of the River Derwent, within the bounds of the new council district, to think about what the naming of the new council as ‘Cumberland’ might change about the region and, more specifically, the role of culture and the arts in the new local government configuration.
As well as new essays on place by John and Katie Milestone, this publication features contributions from workshop participants; Deanne Shallcross, Simon Walker, Daniel Whitehouse, artists Julia Parks and Esme Bull, Jody Ferguson, Petra Tjitske Kalshoven, and Justin O’Connor, a leading global voice on the relationship between culture and place, based at the University of South Australia.