participate: Insect City - Workshop
Went to this one day research workshop organised by Urban Lab which explored relationships between insects and cities....so so inspiring I nearly cried! I have an interest in both so was a bit of a double whammy.
The venue itself was fitting, with the morning session held at the Grant Museum of Zoology (UCL) and the afternoon session at the ARUP Animal Estates space - a great temporary space in the reception of the ARUP consulting firm. The juxtaposition of the slick corporate reception area with the chaos of the Animal Estates space was interesting in itself!!
Talk orders of the day included:
Particularly interesting for me were -
The venue itself was fitting, with the morning session held at the Grant Museum of Zoology (UCL) and the afternoon session at the ARUP Animal Estates space - a great temporary space in the reception of the ARUP consulting firm. The juxtaposition of the slick corporate reception area with the chaos of the Animal Estates space was interesting in itself!! Talk orders of the day included:
- From connoisseurship to bioblitz: Monitoring climate change through insect collections
- Oak Processionary Moth infestations in London and St Helier
- Terror by Night: Bedbugs in London
Particularly interesting for me were -
Blue Bottle Flies, biodegradability & Waste Matter (Jennifer Gabrys) - the title doesn't do the talk justice. I have heard Jennifer Gabrys speak about Waste & Plastics before and coming from a Design/Environment background the visuals/content were fab intertwining the life cycle of the fly and typical menu of the fly from a refuse tip. I swiftly bought the book below which she used as inspiration too. Literally food for thought.
Also Eleanor Morgan's talk: How spiders scaled our cities. Eleanor is currently doing an PhD in Fine art at the Slade around spiders' silk and the properties. Currently she is looking into the sound made by the spiders 'playing' their web an reenacting the sounds. Fascinating stuff.
