University of Birmingham Arts & Science Festival

The University of Birmingham’s Art & Science Festival returns 14-20 March 2016.

Themed ‘Memory and Forgetting’, the festival is a FREE programme showcasing culture, research and collaboration at the University through talks, exhibitions, performances, workshops and screenings.

Matron Lloyd and the University’s War Effort

Cadbury Research Library Chamberlain Seminar Room

Monday 14th March 2016 (13:00-13:50)

Lecture by Susan Worrall, Director of Special Collections on the life and work of Kathleen Grace Lloyd (1877-1976) Matron of the 1st Southern General Hospital, based in the buildings on the University’s Edgbaston campus during the First World War.

A small exhibition of Matron Lloyd’s memorabilia and photographs from the Cadbury Research Library will be on display in the Main Library 11 January – 20 March 2016.

Why Remember?

Muirhead Tower Seminar Room 113

Wednesday 16th March 2016 (17:00-18:00)

Why remember? Why are 100 years significant? How would you remember? These questions were posed as part of a research network and educational campaign linked to the now iconic installation of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’.

Join Dr Joanne Sayner, Department of Modern Languages, for this participatory workshop in which you will have a chance to reflect on your own answers to these questions, to respond to an animated film about the First World War made by pupils at the Grey Coat Hospital in London, and to discuss your reactions to the installation at the Tower.

Living the Heritage of Conflict: Memory, Identity and Memorialisation

European Research Institute (ERI) Digital Humanities Hub

Thursday 17th March 2016 (17:00-19:00)

War memorial research to date has almost exclusively focused on the creation and use of monuments by those with living memories of the events and individuals commemorated.

Dr Emma Login leads a panel discussion exploring the reframing of remembrance and memorialisation for citizens of a modern, innovative, twenty-first century global community.

The session will explore the topic from multiple perspectives to include historic and contemporary conflicts, and will bring together conflict academics with professionals from cultural and heritage organisations. The Digital Humanities Hub will also have images of memorials and conflict on their touch tables and screens which the audiences can engage with prior to the discussion.

Absconditi Viscus

BCU School of Art Margaret Street B3 3BX

Thursday 17th March 2016 (18:00-20:00)

Join sound artist Justin Wiggan for the launch of Absconditi Viscus, a series of phonic excavations from Birmingham City University School of Art’s archives during the period 1914 to 1918.

Following a series of public workshops, Wiggan presents five sound pieces which have been embedded into the fabric of the building at Margaret Street and are accessible only through QR codes. Visitors are invited to use their smart phones to access the sound files which will enable them to engage with the phonic residue left within the fabric of the School of Art building on Margaret Street after those four years of political and social turbulence.

‘Absconditi Viscus’  is an ongoing project which considers the notion of historical phonic information that is lost but continues to permeate and affect physical and psychological space, leaving a legacy for subsequent generations.

Admission free, no need to book.