(2008-07-01)

Memory Maps: Image, Place & Story sets out to develop themes that were explored in Passionate Natures, a CRASSH conference convened last summer by Robert Macfarlane. The 2008 conference focused more closely on cultural and social identities as they interact with narratives of place in memory. The question of memory work in the current increasingly popular literature of place will be a central concern.

Joy Gregory’s paper entitled ‘Land & Language’ focused on the research she has done around endangered language. N/u is one of the oldest languages of humankind and is essentially moribund despite various efforts to revive it. After a particular research trips she decided to concentrate on the story of two sisters she met in the course of this work. Their life story included an experience as exhibits in the Johannesburg 1936 Empire exhibition. This journey through life seemed to personify the demise of the language and the breakdown of the community all of which are embodied in the politics and history of colonisation of South Africa. The plan for the language to live on in the landscape is also central to her presentation and the final work.

The project Memory Maps began in 2006 as a website created by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the University of Essex Creative Writing MA, and the British Centre for Literary Translation. It was established to explore our relationships to place. The conference in Cambridge took place in collaboration with Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge, on 1-3 July.