(Dis)ordering the City: Buildings, Bodies and Urban Space

Emily Speed in conversation with Duncan Light

Location: Bluecoat Arts Centre (Liverpool)
Year: 2016

(Dis)Ordering the City focused on the making and reshaping of urban space. In particular, it explored the relationship between official urban planning processes and the subversion of city spaces by the people who use them. Drawing upon their own creative and academic research, artist Emily Speed and geographer Duncan Light examined the ways in which urban spaces are performed, and how certain practices – such as walking, urban exploration and the creation of ‘desire lines’ – might be viewed as tactics for ‘disordering’ the city.

Emily Speed works in sculpture, installation and performance and her work is concerned with the relationship between the body and architecture. During 2016 she has solo exhibitions at TRUCK, Calgary and a major new commission at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Texas. Recent exhibitions include Plymouth Art Centre; g39, Cardiff; Oredaria Gallery, Rome; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St Louis, USA; Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland. Speed’s work is held in the Arts Council Collection, Tate Artists’ Books Collection and her artists’ books are held in numerous libraries in the US including Yale, Library of Congress and MIT.
Dr Duncan Light is senior lecturer in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality at Bournemouth University. A human geographer by background, he worked for 20 years in Liverpool before moving to Bournemouth. He has research interests in urban landscapes, particularly in Romania (a country he has visited regularly for more than 20 years). In particular, his research has explored the efforts to remake the ‘official public landscape’ created by Romania’s communist regime in the post-communist period. He has published papers on these issues in a range of journals and has also contributed chapters to a number of recent edited volumes about post-communist change.

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