With summer now fully underway, we’re happy to report on recent experiences from our Writingplace Open Strategic Meeting, which was held on June 5-6 of this year, in coordination with a presentation of the inaugural volume of the Writingplace book series, Poetics of Place, at the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, and alongside an in-situ writing workshop, Unguarded Rails, as part of the festival programme. With funding support from Open Science NL and in association with both TU Delft and Poetry International, the occasion allowed for critical meetings of Writingplace editorial committee members with publishers and partners as we continue the evolution of Writingplace to an academic book series exploring the interdisciplinary spaces between literature and architecture. This strategic and exploratory aspect of the meeting was merged with strong public engagement through the festival workshop and open lectures, allowing both specialized and broader audiences to become acquainted with the research activities of the Writingplace cohort.
The two days of activity launched with the Writingplace Open Workshop, which assembled editorial committee members, recent contributing authors, copy editors and designers, as well as representatives from publishers TU Delft OPEN Publishing and nai010 publishers, to discuss and make plans for the future of Writingplace. Following opening remarks by Klaske Havik (TU Delft) and Angeliki Sioli (TU Delft), the workshop offered meaningful opportunities to develop strategies for the book series, with its specificity of being thematically interdisciplinary and multi-format across both print and digital open-access editions. Topics ranged from publication calendars and editorial review practices to the always-important discussion of funding and support. This was also a chance to shake hands and match faces to names for collaborators who had, in some cases, only met before via email! The session wrapped up with optimism and helpful working points for the future.
After a convivial lunch, the Friday programme opened to the public for presentations of upcoming Writingplace volumes, two lectures, and an official presentation of the inaugural volume of the book series, Poetics of Place. First on the agenda were updates on two forthcoming books by the editorial team from each volume. Leading the presentations were co-editors Susana Oliveira (Lisbon University), Luis Santiago Baptista (Lusofona University) and Onorina Botezat (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University), who are working with co-editor Carlos Machado e Moura (University of Porto) on the forthcoming Ways of Seeing. Visual Narratives, which is currently entering the submission and review phases. Next, Elina Alatalo (Tampere University) and Dorina Pllumbi (TU Delft) presented advancement on (Hidden) Narratives of Resistance, which they are co-editing with Dalia Milián Bernal (Tampere University), and which is already close to the final design stages of production. Both volumes look to be full of exciting contributions in terms of visual approaches to narrative and modes of narrative resistance, with questions from the public in attendance showing strong interest in the publication.
The afternoon continued with two lectures and a book presentation. Jeremy Allan Hawkins (AMUP / ENSA Strasbourg) gave a lecture on “Poetic Practices: Naming, Crossing, Gathering, or Three Poetic Acts for Ouvertures in Space,” to share his research on poetics and spatial practice which is currently in the proposal phase for inclusion as a monograph inthe Writingplace book series. Then, Klaske Havik and Angeliki Sioli presented the freshly available print editions of Poetics of Place. It was an occasion to reveal how the volume explores the ways poetry emerges from place, and what knowledge of place can be revealed for architects, designers, and spatial practitioners by poetry. To mark the moment, contributor Andrew Carr (Cardiff University) presented a lecture “Seeing Things in Seeing Things: Architectural Responses to the Seamus Heaney,” based on his chapter from the bookand exploring the intricate relations of influence between the Irish poet and contemporary architects building in the British Isles.
A group dinner capped the Friday with local cuisine, new acquaintances and overdue reunions, with a hefty serving of good cheer!
The second day brought the Writingplace team more directly into exchanges with the broader public through participation in the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam and via a writing workshop and a book presentation.
To begin, co-editors of Poetics of Place, Klaske Havik, Angeliki Sioli, Vincent Cellucci (TU Delft), and Jeremy Allan Hawkins, held an in-situ writing workshop, Unguarded Rails. The workshop, designed for 20 festival participants, and based in and around the Verhalenhuis (Stories House!), aimed to put placed-based poetic writing into practice. In a mix of micro-writing sessions and site exploration, participants prepared to write collective poems that both captured some of the unique character of the place and the spirit of the group that formed for the event. A bit of not-entirely-unexpected rain did bring some of the activities indoors, but the positive attitudes of everyone involved kept the weather from being a damper. In the end, participants each contributed individual lines to a pair of collective poems written on ribbons and strung up on display in the Velhalenhuis. It was a beautiful experience of forming new bonds, summoning the evocative character of the portuary zone around the workshop, and enacting the power of poetry to reveal and reinforce a dynamic sense of place. With luck (and the necessary permissions), the poems should be published in the near future!
Finally, the closing event took place on Saturday evening at a packed theatre as the Poetics of Place co-editors presented the volume to Poetry International. As part of a brief but plentiful presentation, they were joined in discussion by contributors to explore the contents of the book. Architect Andrew Carr spoke with Jeremy Allan Hawkins about Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s influence on contemporary architecture. Architect and nurse Eline L. van Leeuwen (TU Eindhoven) spoke with Vincent Celluci about her use of poetic practices as means of developing situated knowledge in the institutional setting of a psychiatric hospital. And poet Erik Lindner joined Klaske Havik in a joint reading of their poems inspired by and evocative of place. Angeliki Sioli moderated the evening and bolstered the enthusiasm in the room.
Wrapping up two days of writing, planning, researching, and presenting, the work of the Writingplace project looks well-situated to continue what it undertook as a journal, and in its role in the dissemination of research produced in the COST Action CA18126 Writing Urban Places. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the Writingplace Open Strategic Meeting, especially Salma Ibrahim for endless practicalities, and Onorina Botezat for her generous dedication to documenting our work together.
Otherwise, summer may be here, but we’ll look forward to sharing more information about ongoing Writingplace activities after a bit of seasonal relaxation. Stay tuned!
The event was financially supported by Open Science NL
