Super Sewer: An ongoing series of research seminars: Including Spike Island, Bristol and Hypha London.

Olczak, Susie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9615-5514 (2023) Super Sewer: An ongoing series of research seminars: Including Spike Island, Bristol and Hypha London. In: Super Sewer, 21st January 2023 and 7th May 2023, Spike Island and Hypha Studios, London.

Preview	Text Spike Island Slides. Susie Olczak.pdf - Draft Version Download (5MB) | Preview
	Text Publicity documents for States of Exchange and Super Sewer event at Hypha Studios.docx - Supplemental Material Download (4MB)
Preview	Text (© Susie Olczak) Spike Island- Super Sewer- Symposium.pdf - Accepted Version Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Super Sewer is a series of research seminars initiated by Susie Olczak exploring our current understandings of landscape (urban and rural), through connections between the social sciences, art practice and contemporary thinking. The seminars encourage connections between art practice and contemporary thinking and are open ended with the intention to help visualise and share positive future possibilities in relation to the climate change. The focus is on the importance of forming expansive networks, connecting ideas and allowing for fluidity of thinking and ideas that focus on the double meaning of the word soluble in relation to water and finding solutions to problems. The name Super Sewer is deliberately oxymoronic to be suggestive of the often contradictory and confusing narratives within climate change debate. It takes its inspiration from the London Tideway Project which is a 25km long, 7.2m wide project that will be completed in 2025. The Thames Tideway Tunnel will protect the river for at least the next 100 years. London relies on a 150-year-old sewer system built for a population less than half its current size. As a result, millions of tonnes of raw sewage spills, untreated, into the River Thames each year. The Super Sewer is being built under the Thames to intercept those nasty spills and clean up our river for the good of the city, its wildlife and you. The idea for the series of events was conceptualised during a residency on a canal boat on Regent’s canal and through discussion whilst going through a tunnel about how the boat was in a tunnel about a network of tunnel systems, old and new. At the time Cross Rail was being bored out from beneath us. The series of discussion groups are intended to scope potential research collaborations and developing strains of research with external partners. Participants from CCRI and School of Arts at the University of Gloucestershire alongside invited guest attendees have the opportunity to share good practice and future ideas in an informal setting. Researchers are invited to present papers and to discuss literature to an invited rather than public audience. This is a way of encouraging speculation and looking at models for presenting practice research in tandem with written and data driven research, in ways that give general models for the future as well as specific models for some of the research projects that are evolving. The discursive setting also allows for reflection on other developments. The discussions are open in what they generate and how projects evolve from it remains deliberately speculative and open ended.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Other)
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Depositing User:	Susie Olczak
Date Deposited:	06 May 2026 11:44
Last Modified:	06 May 2026 11:45
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/15980

University Staff: Request a correction | Repository Editors: Update this record