One of the great things about researching something academically as well as creatively, is that you get to geek out over your topic at the occasional conference, and I’m really looking forward to attending a conference next week at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt’s Practicing Place Centre in Bavaria.

The conference is multi-disciplinary in nature and focuses on the different ways we practice and make place: ways of ‘doing’ and being. The key note speaker is the renowned geographer Tim Creswell, who is also a published poet with a PhD in creative writing. My creative exploration of landscape and place is underpinned by some of the thinking in cultural geography as well as anthropology, so I’m very interested to hear and to learn from Tim’s opening presentation covering the theme of Routes.

My own presentation comes as part of the ‘Sensing and Storying’ panel following Tim’s opening address, and draws on some of the thinking in anthropology and cultural geography to explore the idea of the presence of absence in the landscape as one way of approaching an understanding of place.

There are six panels of speakers in total, covering the themes of ‘Sensing and Storying’, ‘Contestations’, ‘Imagining and Creating’, ‘Productions and Reproductions’, and ‘Constructing the City.’ I’ve never been to Germany, and with such a packed couple of days exploring how we make and experience Place, it’s a trip I’m really looking forward to.

You can read more about the conference here. Its output will be subsequently published by the centre.