Anthropologist Tim Ingold and artist researcher Michaela Büsse will speak as part of an evening centred around what it means to 'turn the ground' and resist reclaimed land. Following a short talk from each guest, a conversation with the audience will be chaired by Cyan and Chen.

A short film White Elephant (2022) will be on loop from 6.10pm, and the talk and conversation will start from 6.30pm. It will be a floor-based gathering with rugs, cushions and mats and seating for those who prefer it. You are welcome to come from 6.10pm to enjoy the short film with drinks ahead of the conversation.

The Turn of the Ground in an Earth-Sky World
Tim Ingold

If the air is up above, and the earth down below, what lies in between? The answer is the ground. But how, then, should we describe it? Is it an interface, like a pavement, which separates the earth from the sky, keeping each to its respective domain, or is it a zone in which earth and sky interpenetrate, allowing soil and moisture to combine with atmospheric air in the production of life? Focusing on what it means to turn the ground, in the practices of both cultivation and burial, we argue that it is alternately both. As generations come and go, the earth alternately opens to the sky and turns against it.

Granular Configurations: Land Reclamation and Resistance
Michaela Büsse

From the high-rises that define urban skylines to the silicon chips that drive digital technologies, sand is deeply embedded in the fabric of contemporary life. The consequences of its extraction exemplify broader environmental degradations occurring on our planet. The destabilization of riverbanks, erosion of beaches, and sedimentation of aquatic habitats are more than just ecological issues—they reflect the extractive logics underpinning urban development. At the same time, sand’s granular nature—its complex and shifting qualities— challenges and complicates efforts to control it. This presentation weaves together fieldwork from land reclamation projects in the Netherlands, Singapore, and Malaysia, tracing sand's journey from a natural material to an engineered urban landscape. Using the physics of sand—fluid at times, solid at others—I demonstrate how attempts to accumulate and transform shorelines often collide with the material’s tendency to erode, leading to unexpected patterns of sedimentation that open the way for alternative futures.

White Elephant (2022)
By Michaela Büsse, with additional camera and editing by Konstantin Mitrokhov and sound by Andreas Kühne

White Elephant portrays the desolate state of an abandoned land and real estate development project along the coast of Malacca in Malaysia. This two-channel video installation explores the gap between visionary architectural models, polished digital renderings, and the stark reality of an unfinished reclamation site.

Tim Ingold is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018), Correspondences (2020), Imagining for Real (2022) and The Rise and Fall of Generation Now (2023). Ingold is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2022 he was made a CBE for services to Anthropology.

Michaela Büsse is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist based in Berlin. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Technische Universität Dresden and the Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, as well as an Associated Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material" at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research focuses on spatial and material transformations in the context of speculative urbanism, climate change mitigation, and energy transitions. Drawing on environmental humanities and feminist science and technology studies, she examines how design practices and technologies govern environments and define who and what is rendered inhuman.

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng is Harvard GSD’s Wheelwright Prize Fellow for TRACING SAND and a CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary researcher on field-based research.

Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist and independent filmmaker as well as a CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary researcher on field-based research.

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk