Science and academic partners

We have many partners supporting the project in numerous ways – which we are highly appreciative of. They come from various disciplines – earth sciences; geology; archaeology; cultural geography – resulting in rich dialogues and fascinating exchanges. Partner organisations include the University of Exeter, University of Southampton (Soton), AUCB and the Jurassic Coast team from Dorset County Council.

They inform the ExLab project in many ways – by enlightening the artists; skills sharing; equipment and software support and – most importantly – their enthusiastic engagement with the concepts behind the research projects.

Jurassic Coast Team: Richard Edmonds, Sam Scriven, Sam Rose  and Daisy Sutcliffe

ExLab is a partner of Creative Coast 2012, an 18 month project which aims to connect people’s imaginations with the stories of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.  In order to do this, it is developing the Creative Coast Forum, a network of artists, scientists, educators, arts organisations, local businesses, and public bodies.  This Forum will encourage, support and deliver the Jurassic Coast’s creative programmes beyond 2012.  This is made possible by the networks that have formed to make work which will animate the Jurassic Coast during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic events.

Richard Edmonds
Earth Science Manager, Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Site Team

Richard Edmonds is a graduate geologist from the University of Hull
(1980-83) with a particular interest in palaeontology. After a brief spell
working in the oil industry, he decided to pursue a career in countryside
work, initially with the National Trust for Scotland before being lucky
enough to become the fist warden of the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre
(1986-1997). The primary focus of the Centre is on the famous fossils found
on the West Dorset coast and the job entailed leading many public walks and
schools onto the beaches to discover the wonders of palaeontology.
Following that he moved to Dorset County Council in 1997, initially to
develop the Jurassic Coast Project which was set up to explore the
opportunities and challenges that World Heritage Site designation could
bring to the coast. After the status was granted, he moved to his current
post as Earth Science Manager within the Jurassic Coast Team. The primary
role is to monitor and protect the site from damaging operations and to
manage the palaeontological interests. As a geologist within a wider team
with an ambitious work programme, he is also involved in many other aspects
of the teams work; education, tourism, marketing, communities and the arts.

Sam Scriven
Earth Science Advisor, Jurassic Coast World Heritage Team

As the Earth Science Adviser Sam has input into a great many aspects of the team’s work with a focus on the conservation of the World Heritage Site, developing interpretation and co-ordinating involvement with events. Sam’s work also takes him away from the coast where he assists in the monitoring and conservation of important geological sites inland.

Sam grew up only a few miles away from the Jurassic Coast and it is where he developed his interest in geology and fossils. After gaining a Masters in Geology from the Univertsity of Plymouth he worked as assistant warden and geologist at the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre for four years. The experience he gained there in geological interpretation led him on to the position of Earth Science Adviser for the Jurassic Coast. He has always been determined to work in geological conservation and interpretation and feels privileged to be able to work along the coastline that he loves and that inspired him to study geology in the first place.

Sam Rose, Team Leader, Jurassic Coast Team

Dr Sam Rose is responsible for the overall coordination of the delivery of the Management Plan for the World Heritage Site.  In addition to managing the specialists in the Jurassic Coast Team, each of whom have responsibility for one of more of the Aims in the Plan, Sam has a specific role with respect to developing partnerships with local, national and international organisations, and in the development of major projects.  Sam is the primary contact for all contact and negotiations between the World Heritage Site and UK Government and UNESCO, but is equally happy helping out with Dinosaur Jigsaws and Fossil Dig trays at events such as the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival.

By way of background, Sam completed a PhD into Tropical Rain Forest Biodiversity at the University of Leeds in 1996.  He subsequently managed biodiversity research projects in South America, and supported international development work for VSO in countries as diverse as Kazakhstan, Tuvalu and Sri Lanka, so is not quite sure how this led him to be Site manager for a geological World Heritage Site.

Daisy Sutcliffe, Creative Coast Coordinator

Daisy is responsible for coordinating the Creative Coast 2012 project.  This aims to engage people’s imaginations with the stories of the Site.  Daisy provides the strategic overview of potential creative partners and projects which wish to work with the World Heritage Site.

She develops partnerships directly with both local organsiations and regional, national and international ones which will join together the family of World Heritage Sites and encourage creative participation in the global citizenship agenda.

Much of the focus of the work so far has been in partnership with local and regional cultural organisations, and with an eye towards 2012 and animating the sailing events at Weymouth and Portland.  Going forward we will be focusing our efforts on several large scale projects. See here www.jurassiccoast.com/creativecoast for more information about this area of our work.

Daisy studied Physics, Chemistry and Biology at A-level, and then went on to Edinburgh University where she graduated with MA(hons) in Social Anthropology, specialising in how art and music shape the society in which we live. She has always been involved in the arts, as a creator, performer, facilitator, manager and audience member, and is passionate about contributing to and engaging with the communities in which she has lived and worked.  The bulk of her previous career has been in London in arts education and community engagement for the Arts Council, Lewisham EAZ, Cultural Co-operation, The Royal Festival Hall, and the Hackney Empire.

University of Bournemouth

Andrew Ford, Lecturer in Geoinformatics, School of Applied Sciences

 

Andy is a Lecturer at Bournemouth University. His research and teaching is focused on geomorphology, specialising in the study of mass-movement, such as landslides and glaciers. He employs observation techniques such as airborne and terrestrial laser scanning (ALS and TLS), photogrammetry and satellite radar (InSAR). For analysis he specialises in the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Andy is currently providing ExLab artists with topography and bathymetry of the Jurassic Coast.

Denys Brunsden – independent geologist

Professor Denys Brunsden OBE, DSc(Hons), FKC.  Is an Emeritus Professor of Geomorphology of  King’s College London, Trustee of the Jurassic Coast Trust, past-Chairman of the Dorset Coast Forum where he proposed the idea of the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Site. He researched the case for eight years and helped to write the application to UNESCO which was successful on 13^th December 2001. Denys studied at King’s College, BSc Geography and PhD Geomorphology.

He has taught in the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Louisiana State University, USA and the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was a founder Consultant of Geomorphological Services Ltd and the first President of the International Association of Geomorphology(IAG). He has worked all over the world as a consultant, specialising in landslides, processes in high mountains (Himalaya, Karakorams) and deserts. He has worked in more than thirty countries on problems of Engineering Geology for which he has been awarded the William Smith and Glossop medals of the Geological Society of London.

He has the Linton Award of the British Society of Geomorphology and many other honours from the Geographical Association, Royal Geographical Society and the IAG. He has published 13 books and over 100 academic papers.

In retirement Denys lives in Chideock, where he founded the Free University of Chideock (a Free Drinking Institution and Cider of Excellence), works on the Steering group of the WH Site as a Trustee, consults for Engineers such as Halcrow and Atkins, BP etc and currently wanders along big pipelines in Turkey. He attends the Chideock Cider Shed and this year (2012) judged the organic and single varieties class at the Bath and West Show.  The second most exciting interest this year is studying the geomorphology of the seafloor of Lyme Bay using the new DORIS Survey of multi-beam bathymetry. Denys is also a viciously free artist, using Brusho and inspired by the WH Coast. Very few people buy them!

The Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton.

Gareth Beale and Nicole Beale from the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton are providing technical support to artists and helping them to produce temporary artworks relating to the county of Dorset and the Jurassic Coast. Amongst other work, they are using photogrammetry to record underground quarries on Portland and recording complex archaeological objects for 3D printing. blogs: http://ourti.org/  and http://gcbeale.tumblr.com/

Exeter University , Dr Ian Cook, Dr Nicola Thomas, Rose Ferraby, PhD student, Dr John Wylie

Dr Ian Cook, Associate Professor of Geography. Ian is a cultural geographer with longstanding interests in material geographies, multi-sited ethnographic research, connective aesthetics andcritical pedagogy. He combines these in/as ‘follow the thing‘ work. In recent years he has added to these interests new media ecology and commodity activism, after experimenting with blogging as a means to write collaboratively about the geographies of food, and with web design to createfollowthethings.com, a spoof online shop, resource, database and fieldsite stocked with provocative ‘follow the thing‘ work by academics, students, filmmakers, artists, journalists and others. He writes as ‘Ian Cook et al‘ to acknowledge the collaborative nature of all of his work.

Dr Nicola Thomas (Senior Lecturer in Human Geography in the College of Life and Environmental Sciences) has brought her exploration of craft and communities and the traces of history and memory bound up in skills, crafts and the evidence of them to the ExLab project. Nicola Thomas developed her interest in historical and cultural geography during her undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford. She pursued this through an MA in Cultural Geography (Research) at Royal Holloway, University of London before returning to the University of Oxford to develop her doctoral research. Nicola was appointed as Research Associate on the ESRC funded project ‘South Asian Transnationality and Commodity Culture’ in 2001, based at Royal Holloway, University of London working with Prof Peter Jackson, Prof Phil Crang and Dr Claire Dwyer.

Rose Ferraby, PhD student. Rose is a PhD student in Cultural Geography at Exeter University. With a background in landscape, archaeology and art, the PhD research focuses on geobiographies of stone on the Jurassic Coast. She is interested in how this can be communicated creatively, using image and text together to form an integrated narrative. As part of the research she has been using extended conversations with some of the artists from the ExLab project to look at the process of collaboration and making.”

Dr John Wylie  - Cultural Geographies of landscape, embodiment & performance. Through a sequence of 10 books, single-author journal articles, editorials and book chapters Dr Wylie has attempted to outline and explore a series of arguments aiming to advance landscape studies beyond the ‘ways of seeing’ paradigm dominant in cultural geography since the late 1980’s. Seeking to foreground and delineate theoretically-rich notions of materiality, embodied practice and perception, his research considers intertwinings of self and landscape – of culture and nature more generally – through focusing upon their performance via everyday practices such as walking and visualising.

Dr Harriet Hawkins.