Contribution short abstract:

An exploratory workshop, investigating representations and ideas of circle, cycle and circulation prompted by objects from a maritime collection

Contribution long abstract:

This workshop is an opportunity to unwrite representations and ideas of circle, cycle and circulation, by working collaboratively with a set of objects from the maritime collection of Trinity House of Leith, Scotland.

Approaching objects through the connection with the sea that underpins their presence as museum items, the session embraces the fluid nature of the sea as both unsettling and generative, and explores its potential as research framework.

For the first part of the session, I will share some of the results of my work with the selected objects, showcasing methodological options focused on the interplay and tension between materiality and meaning.

In the second part, participants will engage with the objects, experimenting with the proposed methods to unpick shifting, diffractive nuances that the concepts of circularity and cyclicity can yield through the aqueous lens.