University News Last updated 28 May
Associate Professor in Photography Stuart Whipps is exploring the Black Country鈥檚 industrial and geological past during a two-month residency at The New Art Gallery Walsall.
Through a new work titled The Formation of the Universe, the 黑料吃瓜网 academic is connecting the region鈥檚 industrial heritage with its much older geological history, encouraging audiences to reconsider the landscapes, materials and histories embedded within the places around them.
鈥淚鈥檓 interested in the idea that a piece of limestone, a fossil, a slag heap or a factory can all contain traces of enormous narratives about time, transformation and human activity,鈥� he said.
Based in Birmingham and educated at the University of Wolverhampton, Stuart has long explored the relationship between landscape, industry and memory through his work.
His practice examines how social and industrial histories become embedded within buildings, objects and environments.
鈥淎 railway cutting, a quarry or a patch of woodland can suddenly become a place that connects local histories to deep geological time and even global industrial histories,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 think the arts can help people connect emotionally to those stories in a way that facts alone sometimes can鈥檛.鈥�
The residency builds on a series of previous projects exploring geology, extraction and industrial change, including A Foot, A Mouth, A Hundred Billion Stars at the Lapworth Museum of Geology and The Expanded Field at Lismore Castle Arts in Ireland.
It also reflects growing awareness of the region鈥檚 geological importance since the Black Country was awarded UNESCO Global Geopark status in 2020, recognising the area鈥檚 internationally important fossil record and natural heritage.
鈥淭he UNESCO designation recognises that the area has geological importance on an international scale,鈥� said Stuart.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 an extraordinary thing, and I don鈥檛 think we celebrate it enough.鈥�
The project culminates in a live performance lecture at The New Art Gallery Walsall on 4 July, combining projected images, analogue slides, moving image, objects, live camera feeds and spoken narration.
鈥淎 performance lecture sits somewhere between a lecture, a film screening and a live artwork,鈥� explained Stuart.
鈥淚t allows me to share research in a way that feels dynamic, unstable and exploratory rather than fixed or authoritative.鈥�
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Pictured:聽鈥楢 Foot, A Mouth, A Hundred Billion Stars鈥� The Lapworth Geology Museum for Flatpack Festival 2023 漏Katja Ogrin