One of the outputs that the Festspace team has produced from the project is a Handbook of Methods for Researching Festive Spaces. This Handbook draws on insights from the academic team on the methods they used during their fieldwork enquiries into festivals, events and inclusive public spaces alongside their do’s and don’ts when researching festive happenings. (more…)
I was invited to contribute to a conference organised by The Cockburn Association titled ‘Whose Festival is it Anyway’ on Saturday 31st January. The conference featured panels exploring Edinburgh’s Festivals – past, present and future. I participated in a panel chaired by well-known broadcaster, Stephen Jardine, focused on Cultural Tourism and the Festivals: What will be the ‘new normal’? The panel discussion can be accessed on the Cockburn Association’s YouTube channel. This conference built on a large public meeting held in January 2020, City for Sale? The Commodification of Edinburgh’s Public Spaces which I also spoke at. The theme of festivals, public space and the city is the focus of a large research project, Festspace, that I lead, which is funded by the Humanities in the European Area (HERA). (more…)
While formal, officially sanctioned social gatherings were banned during lockdown, more localised and creative responses to the restrictions associated with COVID-19 were evident, across the world. From the balcony concerts of Barcelona, to the socially distanced street parties celebrating VE Day in London and the neighbourhood DJ sets taking place in other cities, the everyday, communal and ‘hyper-local’ responses to COVID-19 of people in our urban locations was inspiring. (more…)
CCSE Deputy Director Professor David McGillivray has recently published the following blog post as part of the FESTSPACE project he leads discussing the impact and implications of COVID-19 on the festivals, events and public spaces that project is investigating. This post first appeared on the FESTSPACE website.
Our FESTSPACE project was conceived in a pre COVID-19 world, where those interested in festivals, events and urban policy were debating how to best design and manage public spaces to bring people together, to encourage co-presence and generate convivial atmospheres involving as wide a representation of the population as possible. (more…)
In early January, CCSE’s Deputy Director, Professor David McGillivray, was invited to the Olympic capital, Lausanne, to present his work as part of an Event, Cities and Urbanism conference hosted by the University of Lausanne. (more…)