I’ve just starting contributing posts to Celsias, and my first two articles are online. Go and have a look:
The forest cannot be bought – how the land rights of indigenous tribes are key to forest conservation.
Ecosocialism – a more green red, and a more red green.
And another thing. A mate of mine is in the running to be crowned best kiwi blogger in Stuff’s Blog Idol. Last few days and down to the final three. Head over to Andy’s blog and then vote Andy Feltoe.
I’ve been away with the Lifewords team this past week, shooting a short film called ‘come and talk with me’ up in Northumbria. It’s a reflection on Psalm 27 and hearing God’s voice, using the story of the 7th century hermit St Cuthbert as an example. We’ve not really done this before, so not sure yet how it’s all going to turn out, but it’s been good fun and a real learning experience. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Everybody likes a good ruin, but the ones we usually value tend to be old, ancient civilisations, runied abbeys. But the 20th century has given us more abandoned places than any other, the cycles of innovation, industry and obsolesence leaving us with ruins in and around our cities, empty and crumbling, foreboding and locked away. I find such places fascinating.
So does Tim Edensor, my old university lecturer, who wrote a book on the subject.
His eloquent and thought provoking take on industrial ruins is online too, in writing and in photography, here and here.
“As spaces by the side of the road, ruins can be explored for effects that talk back to the quest to create an impossibly seamless urban fabric, to the uses to which history and heritage are put, to the extensive over-commodification of places and things, to middle-class aesthetics, and to broader tendencies to fix meanings in the service of power.”
The latest from Make Wealth History
