In Conversation with Ed Armston-Sheret

Landscape Surgery@25

Landscape Surgery Alumni 2017-2021 

About

Ed Armston-Sheret completed his PhD at Royal Holloway in the Geography department in 2021. His PhD, titled ‘Exploring Bodies: Recentring the Body in Histories of British Exploration, c.1850–1914,’ investigated the history of exploration and the bodies of explorers and those they travelled with. By offering a new perspective on Victorian exploration, Ed’s research is attentive to the contributions and experiences of people who are often ignored in mainstream histories of exploration, such as the porters who carried explorers’ equipment, sailors who worked on the ships, and so on. Ed is also interested in the role of animals in exploration and the collaboration between humans and animals on expeditions. 

Ed now works for the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in the Research and Higher Education Team.  

Image source: https://bit.ly/EdArmstonSheretRHUL

What are your reflections on the atmosphere and the community of Landscape Surgery? 

I always enjoyed going to Landscape Surgery. It was a nice community and there were always lots of fantastic discussions – it always made me realise what a broad discipline geography is. As a historical geographer you often have certain types of conversations, but interacting with people from the broader research group was always interesting to learn about something slightly different and seek parallels between that and your own work. It also created a cohort of PhD students who went through it at the same time which I think was really valuable in terms of building up a community spirit.  

What do you remember about who was there when you were a part of Landscape Surgery, and can you remember any of the key topics or trends that were spoken about? 

I remember in my second year of Landscape Surgery organising a session which was on the history of exploration. We used some funds from Landscape Surgery to invite Vanessa Heggie, who is doing some interesting research on extreme environment physiology, to speak. I remembered that talk because she is a fantastic scholar, and it was great to meet her.  

Session can be found here. 

There was a great talk from Flora Parrott, Rachel Squire, and Pete Adey on analogic spaces, caves, and the ends of the earth.  

Session can be found here.  

I also remember discussing the project Making Suburban Faith with Natalie Hyacinth, a PhD student working on the project. Making Suburban Faith explores how suburban faith communities create space and focuses on eight different faith communities in Ealing in West London. Laura Cuch presented her film, Spiritual Flavours, at Landscape Surgery which is part of the wider Making Suburban Faith research project. 

Session can be found here.  

I always enjoyed the first year presentations which I thought was a good aspect of Landscape Surgery. You would meet people in Landscape Surgery, but you didn’t always know what they were researching, therefore it was always fantastic to get people to talk about their research.   

What impact do you feel Landscape Surgery had on your work as a student? 

I think it was always the chance encounters and conversations you would have with people which was productive in terms of thinking about your own research. You would say what you had been up to, and someone would suggest something to read or give ideas to think about which was really useful. Conceptually I remember it being invaluable because the value of collaborative working is something I end up talking about in my own research. I think the importance of collaborative work within geography is something you realise by doing it, it’s not just specific conversations but working with other people which contributes to your own work. 

How did Covid-19 change the space of Landscape Surgery and impact the relationships between people at Landscape Surgery? 

I think the talks are still valuable online. A good thing was that you could have speakers from a wider cross-section of geography, as people couldn’t necessarily come to London. However, I did miss the in-person element. Working online affects the networking aspect of Landscape Surgery and getting to know people. 

Why do you think Landscape Surgery has been so successful? 

I think because it has got a lot of support from everyone in the department – people will try and attend the sessions. Also, people are interested in each other’s research, it’s a good way of hearing about that – it has become an established way for people to talk about their research. 

How important do you think the students who join Landscape Surgery are to its continued success? 

The students are incredibly important to Landscape Surgery. I think they are the centre of it in many ways as it keeps breathing new life into the surgeries, especially the first year presentations which are great because it gives students the opportunity to talk about their new research. As students play such an important role in organising Landscape Surgery sessions, keeping the blog up-to-date and so on, it is a good way of students gaining experience. 

What would you hope Landscape Surgery to achieve or continue to achieve in the next 25 years? 

One of the talks I remember, organised by Saskia Papadakis, was titled Why is my research group so white? I couldn’t attend but I remember talking to people about it afterwards and it started a really good conversation about the lack of diversity in geography in many ways. If I was to go forward 25 years, I would like Landscape Surgery to be more diverse, more representative of people who are currently excluded from academic geography. Some of that is down to Landscape Surgery, but we also need to put pressures on the wider system to make changes that need to happen.

Interview conducted by Beth Williamson 

In Conversation with David Rooney

  Landscape Surgery@25

Landscape Surgery Alumni 2010-2016  

About

David Rooney completed his PhD in 2016 in Royal Holloway’s Geography department. His PhD research, supervised by David Gilbert, is titled ‘The Traffic Problem: Geographies, Politics and Technologies of Congestion in Twentieth Century London’ and explores movement in the country’s capital at the intersection of political, geographic and technological spheres. David is a writer and curator and has spent 25 years working in science and maritime museums. His latest book ‘About Time, A History of Civilisation in Twelve Clocks’ is based on 15 years of research into why civilisations make clocks and why we should understand them better.  

A link to David’s website, with information on his new book other books and exhibitions can be found here.  

David joined Landscape Surgery around the same time he started his PhD in 2010. During his time in Landscape Surgery, David gave 2 presentations. In 2011 he worked alongside Mustafa Dikec and Carlos Alveros Galves on their project exploring time distribution and infrastructure in cities. In 2015 David presented his PhD research on traffic congestion in 20^th century London, drawing on London as a global city through which he studied global flows of capital. 

Image source: https://www.davidrooney.uk/about

What are your reflections on the atmosphere and the community of Landscape Surgery?  

Landscape Surgery and the Geography department was a big community, they had the most supportive, warm, inclusive and encouraging people I have ever worked within in my career. We met in Bedford square, which was a small room and you had to fight to get a seat! It was always sociable, you would be able to talk about work but also have social and moral support from the Landscape Surgery community.  

What do you remember about who was there, and what were the key topics/trends/turns? 

The diversity of topics was notable, all of the presentations were so far from your own research study but it did not matter because the work was all so thoughtful that you gain a lot out of everyone’s work. There was always a sense of togetherness and sharing, like a flat hierarchy. The presentation topic was only part of it, hearing people’s approach to their studies was something I had never experienced before and being able to see new ways of thinking and approaching research. You could apply other people’s approaches to your own studies even though your topics were worlds apart.  

What impact do you feel Landscape Surgery had on your work as a student and then later as a researcher?  

Landscape Surgery has definitely impacted my work now. It was so inclusive, so sharing, with no gatekeeping. People wanted everyone to benefit, and that’s something I have taken into my own work, I want to meet people and be able to share my work with them.  

Why do you think Landscape Surgery has been so successful?  

People feel like they are part of something bigger. My experience wasn’t unique though, I think that feeling applies to everyone. It was so inclusive that it encourages you to stay connected and stay involved.  

How important are the students who join Landscape Surgery to its continued success/ progression/ development? 

The inclusivity and sense of community among the students are what makes them want to be a part of it, and which helps with its success and its progression.  

What would you hope Landscape Surgery to achieve/continue to achieve in the next 25 years?  

I would hope to see it go back to Bedford Square, and back to in-person meetings. Landscape Surgery needs the in-person element to create that exciting atmosphere, you could be sat next to a fellow student or a hero of your field and the democratic nature of Landscape Surgery meant that you could speak to and learn from anyone.  

Interview conducted by Evie Gilbert

Look out for our next blog on Ed Armston-Sheret, his work, and his experience of Landscape Surgery by Beth Williamson.

In Conversation with Ellie Miles

Landscape Surgery@25

Landscape Surgery Alumni 2008-2013

Ellie Miles was a Phd Student with Landscape Surgery between 2008 and 2013, completing a thesis on the subject ‘Curating the Global City’. Ellie specialises in online and digital curation, joining the London Transport Museum first as the Contemporary Collecting Curator and then later in her current role as Documentary Curator. Before joining the London Transport Museum Ellie also spent time as the Digital Curator at the Museum of London and as the Interpretations Officer at the British Museum.

As part of Ellie’s work, she is focussed on contemporary collecting, in particular exploring the ethical principles and practices which can inform museum curation. Ellie was also a visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster for 2 years, where she developed and taught the course ‘Online Museums and Galleries’.  

Follow Ellie’s work on her blog here, and on twitter here.

Interview conducted by Cynthia Nkiruka Anyadi

Look out for the next blog on David Rooney, his work and his experience of Landscape Surgery by Evie Gilbert

Celebrating 25 years of Landscape Surgery

Landscape Surgery turns 25: A Series.

By Beth Williamson, Viveca Mellegård, Eva Barbarossa, Cynthia Anyadi and Evie Gilbert

Right from the beginning, Landscape Surgery has been a space for postgraduate students, researchers and artists to share fledgling ideas and work-in-the-making about landscapes – real and imagined, material and ethereal. Social, cultural and historical geographical research projects have been shaped and sharpened by generations of Landscape Surgeons.

The following blogs consist of interviews with students from across Landscape Surgery’s history, we talk to them about their experiences within LS and how being a part of LS has impacted their careers and research. The series starts with an interview with Luciana Martins who studied at Royal Holloway as part of her PhD in Geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro about the visualization of the landscape of Rio de Janeiro by British travellers in the first half of the 19th century.

Martins was part of the first group of Landscape Surgeons gathered together by the highly regarded cultural geographer, Denis Cosgrove who encouraged new ways of seeing and was influential in reinvigorating geography as a discipline spanning the humanities, social and natural sciences. Landscapes and our relationships to them continue to transform and the series will end with a look to the future from current convener, Dr Sasha Englemann.

In conversation with Luciana Martins

Landscape Surgery Alumni 1996-2001

By Viveca Mellegård

Luciana Martins is Professor of Latin American Visual Cultures and Co-Director of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. Originally trained in architecture and urban planning, she specialises in visual and material culture, historical geography, and digital humanities.

Since 2015 Luciana has been working with colleagues at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and other institutions in the UK, Brazil and Germany on an interdisciplinary research programme on the biocultural collections from the Amazon and the Andes of nineteenth-century botanist Richard Spruce. As part of this research programme, she was recently Principal Investigator on the British Academy funded project ‘Digital Repatriation of Biocultural Collections: Connecting Scientific and Indigenous Communities of Knowledge in Amazonia’. She also held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to develop her project on ‘Drawing Together: The Visual Archive of Expeditionary Travel’. 

Look out for the next post in the series about Ellie Miles.