Essaying the Gare - A Slow Research Project

Our 20-minute presentation will showcase a live audiovisual essay documenting a 6-month listening project on the South Gare in Teesside, funded by the Network for Time at the University of Leeds. The aim of the listening project is to establish relationships with a series of local networks and communities, and organise 2-3 listening workshops, to generate ideas and an ethical framework for co-created projects in the area. Jez has been documenting the area since 2016.

Essaying the Gare is a slow research project exploring the past, present and future of South Gare in Teesside. This unique area’s hidden narratives, and the impacts of climate change and deindustrialization on the coastal peninsula, are being explored over a period of several years, mapping these contours of change – with the findings documented and presented in experimental forms of time-based media.

Using the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Climate Action and Sustainable Communities, and work nationally and within the University of Leeds on Coastal Resilient Communities, as points of interrogation; Jez and Mick’s slow research approach to documenting the Gare will examine the notions of slow violence, cultural memory, resilience and local, national and climate politics, and further reveal ongoing changes located on the Gare.