Team
BETWEEN “PARK” AND “ENERGY TRANSITION ZONE”: EXPERIMENTING WITH POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES IN ABERDEEN
Aberdeen, Scotland
Rachel Grant, William Otchere-Darko, Gisa Weszkalnys
Our project starts from the dispute around the proposed Energy Transition Zone [ETZ] in Torry, Aberdeen. The plan cites St Fittick’s park nature reserve and surrounding areas for the ETZ, located between the working-class neighbourhood of Torry and Aberdeen’s semi-industrial southern periphery.
The project will investigate the impact of successive and overlapping energy regimes in and around Torry. The intention is to create an undisciplined, more-than-human contact zone (Isaacs and Ortuba) (2019) where varied understandings of socio-ecological and energy futures can be explored. Our artist-led research programme will comprise artist commissions and public activities; workshops, camps and talks for example.
Team Updates
Between ‘Park’ and ‘Energy Transition Zone’: Experimenting with political possibilities in Aberdeen – November 22 Presentation
Our working group includes anthropologist Gisa Weszkalnys, urbanist William Otchere-Darko and freelance curator Rachel Grant. This project aims to design an artist-led research programme, which takes as its vantage the dispute around a planned Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) in Aberdeen, Europe’s self-declared oil and gas capital.
About the Team
Rachel Grant is a freelance curator based in Aberdeen and operates through the platform Fertile Ground which uses an interdisciplinary, context specific approach and primarily focuses on new commissions.
William Otchere-Darko is a lecturer in urban planning at Newcastle University. His research focuses on urban and resource geographies, particularly spatial and institutional transformations surrounding energy projects and infrastructures.
Gisa Weszkalnys is an associate professor in anthropology at LSE. Her research examines future making as a political, material, and affective practice, specifically in the context of energy developments.