Conference Report – Working Group 5: “Transformation of the Environment”

Conference Report – Working Group 5: “Transformation of the Environment”

Slow Memory General Meeting, June 6-10, 2022
Portland, UK

Hanna Teichler (Goethe University Frankfurt)

On June 6, 2022, many participants in the Slow Memory COST Action gathered on the picturesque island of Portland in the UK. In fact, Portland is a tied island, as we learned from the numerous extracurricular activities that the local organizing team, headed by Action chair Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent University), had planned for us. In keeping with the spirit of the Slow Memory project, herbal walks, stone carving workshops, guided tours of the island, and yoga sessions encouraged participants to reflect on their quite literal environment and their place within it, while at the same time engaging in conceptual and theoretical debates. A gift circle, intended to further facilitate our reflections on slow memory and to foster a sense of group spirit, certainly marked one of the highlights of this amazing five-day event.

Not only did this meeting mark the first full physical gathering of the Slow Memory network, but it was also the inaugural in-person meeting of thematic working group 5: “Transformation of the Environment”. The working-group sessions had been meticulously planned by the group’s two co-chairs, Stef Craps (Ghent University) and Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths, University of London). The first session, “Memories of Water”, a panel revolving around two thought-provoking case studies from the diverse field of environmental memory studies, set the tone for the next days (and possibly months) to come. Rebecca Dolgoy (Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation) introduced us to a veritable “message in a bottle” – a vial of presumably the world’s oldest water, found recently in Kidd Creek, Ontario, Canada. As we learned, this specific water had remained outside of the usual water cycles for a billion years. After a thorough geochemical analysis, this vial was “transferred” to the museum and Rebecca as one of its curators. In her presentation, Rebecca highlighted key issues when it comes to curating and (re)presenting such an artifact: Can we speak of an artifact to begin with? How do we find an appropriate language for acquisition and presentation? This intriguing case study was followed by a project presentation by Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick), who can be considered a trail blazer in the field of environmental memory studies. Joanne showed us short video clips in which communities with a special relationship to water  –  living in Miami, Iceland, Venice, and Cornwall – framed that particular relation artistically and through the medium of film. The outcomes were aesthetically, stylistically, and critically different and provided us with a glimpse of the (trans)cultural “spectacularization” of water. Furthermore, during Joanne’s presentation, it became clear that there are already a plethora of concepts and metaphors circulating, and new ones are being coined as we speak (e.g. “wetscapes”, “hydrocitizenship”, and “wet theatricality”). In my opinion, it will be one of the aims of this working group to consolidate some of these concepts and approaches.

The working-group sessions were complemented by two plenary lectures on environmental topics given by group members, namely Stef Craps’s roundtable contribution on “Glacial Grieving” and Deniz Gundogan Ibrisim‘s (Sabanci University) paper on “Gardening as Slow Memory Work: Forms of Response-ability”.  These insightful talks were rounded off by a reading-group session, organized and hosted by Lucy Bond (University of Westminster) and Jessica Rapson (King’s College London). A conceptual conversation ensued on the basis of three essays (see below), which will be further discussed in a forthcoming working paper.

This first Annual Meeting was concluded by a conversation between filmmaker Gabrielle Brady and Rosanne Kennedy (Australian National University). Brady’s filmic oeuvre explores the multilayered histories of human and non-human migration, trauma, and climate change. After an in-depth discussion of Brady’s concepts and methods in relation to slow memory, participants engaged in a group exercise with the purpose of focusing on our sensory perception of the world. 

As I hope to have brought across, this first general meeting of the Slow Memory COST Action in general, and working group 5’s sessions in particular, not only were impressively organized, but also provided an excellent starting point to further conceptualize (environmental) slow memory, and to engage in productive networking across disciplines. I can’t wait to attend the next meeting!

Reading-group materials:

  • Lucy Bond, Ben De Bruyn & Jessica Rapson (2017) Planetary memory in contemporary American fiction, Textual Practice, 31:5, 853-866, DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2017.1323458.
  • Lucy Bond (2017) ‘In the eyeblink of a planet you were born, died, and your bones disintegrated’: Scales of mourning and velocities of memory in Philipp Meyer’s American Rust, Textual Practice, 31:5, 995-1016, DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2017.1323494.
  • Jessica Rapson (2015) Conclusion: Travelling to Remember, in Topographies of Suffering: Buchenwald, Babi Yar, Lidice. London & New York: Berghahn, pp. 181-204.

Latest Updates

Podcast Episode 6 is out now! Solidarity: The Slow Memory Concept  The concept of solidarity occupies a central yet contested place in the history of Europe’s labor movements. Frequently invoked by trade unionists across ideological traditions, its meanings have never been singular or fixed. Drawing on life story interviews with retired union activists from several...

Podcast Episode 7 is out now! Slow Memory and the Transformation of Conflicts In this episode, members of working group four examine slow processes of remembering after the Yugoslav wars and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Inspired by their COST Action meetings in Belgrade and Belfast during 2024, co-chairs of the working group, Orli Fridman...

 5-7 June 2025, Nottingham, United Kingdom   Keynote: Ann Rigney (Utrecht University)Organisers: Jenny Wüstenberg, Natalie Braber, Chris Reynolds, Jenny Woodley (AIMS@NTU)  “Collective memory is constantly ‘in the works’ and, like a swimmer, has to keep moving even just to stay afloat.” This is how Ann Rigney (2008) conceptualized remembering – not as a fixed repository...

Slow Memory Bulletin 6/2024 Dear Slow Memory Community, We hope this email finds you well and in good spirits. As we are approaching our final grant year, we have some news to share with you. You can always keep up to date with us on Facebook and Instagram and newly on LinkedIn and Bluesky! *Slow...

organized by Vjollca Krasniqi & Layla Zibar DR. ANA MILOSEVIC & UNESCO REPRESENTATIVE – INTRODUCED BY PROF. JENNY WüSTENBERG The workshop will take place online on 11-12 December , 10-12 am (CET). Register via this link.  In this workshop, participants will acquire a comprehensive understanding of “slow memory” concepts and their relevance to policy-making, while...

Future Perfect Park - Info
Chris Reynolds and Sara Dybris McQuaid

Click on each of the players to reveal pop-ups with the exhibition pieces. 

5. ????

8 March 2024, Tirana Albania. Image: Paola Williams

Red Shoes” (Zapatos Rojos) is an art project by Mexican artist Elina Chauvet. The installation features shoes painted red. It serves as a powerful reminder of women murdered or disappeared due to gender-based violence. This symbolic form of protest has become a yearly tradition in Tirana and other cities across Albania.

In Albania, 8 March is celebrated as International Women’s Day. Under Enver Hoxha’s regime, this day was given special significance, not only as a celebration of women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements but also as a platform for promoting women’s rights and equality. The regime’s publication, Shqiptarja e Re, was used as propaganda and a pedagogical tool, with the party-state portraying itself as the “Mother of Albania”.

Even today, 8 March is still commonly perceived as “Mother’s Day” by many, with women often celebrating at dinner parties and receiving red roses. However, in recent years, the day has taken on a deeper meaning, serving as a reflection on the ongoing challenges women face, such as femicide, gender-based violence, discrimination, and unequal opportunities in both their professional and personal lives.

Gilda Hoxha (Mediterranean University of Albania)

4. Shifting Commemorations in Spain

Image: Johanna Vollmeyer

8 March demonstrations in Spain are huge with 1000s of people on the streets. Many people participate as part of a very strong and progressive feminist movement in Spain. However, in recent years the movement has split into two parties. One in favour of the new transgender law, which is one of the most progressive in the world, while the other party is very critical of this law, being concerned about perceived disadvantages for women. For two years now, two separate demonstrations have therefore taken place on 8 March. The image is of my son on his first 8 March demonstration: there were many people (mostly, but not only, women) on the streets fighting for women’s rights, which felt empowering and encouraged me to attend in the future. This cheerful character of my first demonstration with my son has since been lost to me due to the fragmentation of the feminist movement, but I still believe it is important to continue the fight for equality.

Johanna Vollmeyer, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

3. Contemporary Kosovo

Credit: @Marshojmë S’Festojmë.

Disenchanted by mainstream gender equality rhetoric accompanying the neoliberal rationality of post-war state and nation-building, the commercialization of International Women’s Day, and its conflation with Mother’s Day, a feminist awakening and movement rose in Kosovo under the banner “Marshojmë S’ Festojmë” [“We March, We Don’t Celebrate”]. Since 2016, “Marshojmë S’ Festojmë” has staged protests every year on 8 March in Prishtina, the capital city, and other cities in Kosovo against structural inequality, gender oppression, gender-based violence, and discrimination. “Marshojmë S’ Festojmë” creates a feminist platform demanding an end to gender-based violence, equal pay, the valorization of housework, and equal rights to employment and inheritance, while promoting solidarity. It highlights the political dimension of 8 March and the memory of the international women’s struggle for equal rights and social justice. It bridges waves of feminism and the enduring memory of women’s collective mobilization for gender equality across time and space. By reconnecting with historic women’s marches, “Marshojmë S’ Festojmë” reflects the evolving times, deep-seated gender regimes, struggles for equality, and the essence of the feminist movement in contemporary Kosovo. It demonstrates the power of gender and memory in shaping events and how marching on International Women’s Day carries a temporal dimension of slow memory, an alternative imagining of a socially just future locally and globally, constantly in flux.

Vjollca Krasniqi, University of Prishtina

2. Post-Dictatorship Portugal

In 1975, one year after the 1974 revolution, women and men marched side by side for the first time to celebrate International Women’s Day. Source: Archive of “Diário de Notícias” newspaper.

In Portugal, 8 March is not a holiday and never has been. On 8 March 1975, the first International Women’s day was commemorated in Portugal with a march celebrating working antifascist women, in the aftermath of the revolution of 25 April 1974. Men and women gathered in this march that also claimed equal rights for women, as in Portugal the right to vote was only extended to every woman after the 25 April revolution. However, men and older generations in general – who actively participated in these first marches – are now distancing themselves from the contemporary marches of 8 March. Nowadays, International Women’s Day is referred to in the media, and there are marches for women’s rights and against domestic and gender violence in the main cities of the country. They reflect international agendas more than celebrate national figures, leaders or role models in women’s rights. Some people offer “their women” (friends, relatives, mothers, wives, etc) flowers but that’s a personal option – albeit increasingly promoted by media and commerce – to which, more often than not, many educated women reply “I don’t want flowers I want rights”. 

Clara Sarmento, Polytechnic University of Porto

1. Soviet Latvia

An International Women’s Day greeting card sent to Maija Spuriņa’s family by distant relatives in 1981. Typed on the front: “Greetings on Women’s Day!”. Handwritten on the back: “Warm greetings to you all on women’s day! We wish you joy and good mood! Akmentini family, in Talsi, 1981.” (From family archive)

In Latvia, 8 March is associated with the Soviet era, when it was widely celebrated in workplaces and at home. It was common to send greeting cards via post, and for men to greet women with fresh cut flowers, sweets, and small gifts. Because being a mother was seen as an integral part of women’s identity, the date also served as a Mother’s Day. Even though this date was not perceived as explicitly ideological, Soviet propaganda clearly used it to emphasize and celebrate the supposed gender equality in the Soviet Union, while the flower and gift-giving tradition to a certain extent reinforced traditional gender roles.

When the Soviet regime collapsed, Latvian society underwent extensive cultural de-Sovietization. The tradition of flower- and gift-giving lived on, but for many Latvians acquired a negative connotation due to its Soviet roots. More recently, local feminist movements have started organizing Solidarity marches on the date and thereby redefined it as a day to raise awareness of enduring gender inequalities rather than a day to receive flowers and gifts.

Maija Spuriņa (Latvian Academy of Culture)

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more