Anne-Helen Mydland. Contemporary Spode Landscape: White Italian. From Vociferous Void exhibition. Spode factory, Stoke on Trent. 2013. Photo: Bjarte Bjørkum
Topographies of the Obsolete is an artistic research project conceived
in 2012 by
University of Bergen Professors Neil Brownsword and Anne
Helen Mydland,
in collaboration with six European HEI’s and the British
Ceramics Biennial.
Emerging through two phases (2012-15; 2015-2020) it
has to date engaged
ninety-seven interdisciplinary artists, scholars,
cultural commentators and
students from thirteen countries. It has
transformed participants’ practices, with
works originating out of the
initial research being celebrated on an international
platform.
Topographies of the Obsolete has received funding from a variety
of
institutions, alongside its core support from the Norwegian Artistic
Research
Programme (2013-15 & 2015-17), whose peer review system (2015)
rated it
as ‘exemplary… strengthening artistic research and its scope
beyond potential
communities of practitioners/researchers’
The project explores the landscape and associated histories of post-industry,
with an initial emphasis on Stoke-on-Trent, a world-renowned ceramics
capital that bears evidence of fluctuations in global fortunes.
