Post-traumatic Landscapes

by youwillhearmecall

MilkyWayYouWillHearMeCall at the Occursus Post-traumatic Landscapes Symposium

Post-traumatic Landscapes: A Symposium on Cities

The University of Sheffield Arts Enterprise

Wednesday, 22 May 2013 10am to 4pm

Empty: Prince Phillip Playing Fields. Photograph, Tom Rodgers 2012

Emma Bolland will be presenting a short paper: EVERY PLACE A PALIMPSEST (Part Two). The paper will focus on Prince Phillip Playing Fields; municipal playing fields located on the borders of the Scott Hall and Chapeltown areas of Leeds.  This was the site of the murder, and subsequent discovery of the body of Wilma McCann: a victim of Peter Sutcliffe, the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ The paper will examine the anonymity of the site, and the exploration of the idea of the ‘non-space’ as an attempted erasure of traumatic histories; referencing the writings of Gordon Burn and John Newling and their examination of Gloucester City Council’s demolition of 25 Cromwell Street; the home of Fred and Rosemary West. The author’s history and ‘pre-history’ of a continuing personal and creative relationship with the site will locate the experience of site as mediated through the lenses, mythologies and narratives of contested memories, media representations, and the pre-existing themes of landscape and trauma as central to her individual practice. The conclusion will examine the site’s position in relation to the on going collaboration  ‘MilkyWayYouWillHearMeCall’ between the author, Judit Bodor, and Tom Rodgers, and its representation in the novel by David Peace, 1980, which was the starting point for the project.

To contextualise the paper, MilkyWayYouWillHearMeCall will be staging a one day temporary installations of layered images and texts.

Places at the symposium are free. To see details of all the presentations, and to book a place at the symposium, please go to the Occursus website.