ALCHEMY // ANIMALS // ARCHITECTURE // ARCHIVE // CONSUMERISM // DUMPSTER DIVING // EMISSIONS // GARBOLOGY // GARDEN FESTIVAL SITE // GHOST LIBRARY // IDENTITY // LANDFILL // MEMORY // MUSIC // REAPPROPRIATION // RECLAIMATION // RECYCLING // RE-EVALUATING // REINVENTING // REPOLITICIZATION // RETELLING (see Ghost Library) // REVIVING // SPAM // TIME // TRANSFORMATION // URBANISM

ALCHEMY

Gina Czarnecki
Artist whose work crosses multiple genres and platforms. Developed in collaboration with biotechnologists, computer programmers, dancers and sound artists, her films and installations are informed by human relationships to image, disease, evolution, genetic research, and by advanced technologies of image production.
Human remains and traces of presence. A life's investigation of excrement and other forms of human ephemera

Rogan Taylor
Director of the Football Industry Group at Liverpool University and author of "The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shaman to Superstar" (1983).
The alchemy of performance: Turning 'wasted' into 'wanted'

-- bugs

Rod Dillon
Vector-biologist and Lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, obtained his PhD in Microbiology at Bath University. His area of interest lies in insects that transmit tropical diseases.
Bugs in the gut. The wonderful world of waste recycling inside us

-- insects

Guy Knight
Curator of Entomology, World Museum Liverpool, specializing in the conservation biology of British insects, especially sawflies, bees, wasps and ants.
The role of insects in the decomposition of organic material

- parasites

Rod Dillon
Vector-biologist and Lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, obtained his PhD in Microbiology at Bath University. His area of interest lies in insects that transmit tropical diseases.
Black Fever: A tropical disease caused by a deadly parasite that invades human tissue and lives inside blood cells

Rob MacDonald
Reader in Architecture at the Liverpool School of Art & Design, Liverpool John Moores University. Practicing Architect and Vice President of the Liverpool Architectural Society.
Homes for non-heroes. How the architecture for social housing will look in the future

Roger Phillips
Broadcaster on BBC Radio Merseyside since the early 1970s.
Intelligent rubbish. An anecdotal report of architectural waste in Liverpool

Kay Uchegbu
Founder and owner of Liverpool Fashion Week.
Democratize glamour!

Mel Evans
Artist and activist who participates in processes of taking collective radical action including Climate Camp, and is part of interdisciplinary environmental-social campaigning organisation PLATFORM.
Dinner for two. How to cook a nice meal out of Liverpool's dustbins

John Coyne
Became the first Green Party councillor on Liverpool City Council in 2006. He was re-elected in 2007 and now leads the small but growing Green Party group on the council.
Unnecessary journeys: Personal carbon allowance. Necessary journeys: Tradable emissions

Lois Keidan
Co-founder and Director of the Live Art Development Agency, London, which offers resources, professional development schemes and projects and initiatives for the support and development of live art practices and critical discourses in London, the UK and internationally.
Shit, piss, blood, sweat, and tears: Bodily functions in performance

James Marriott
Artist, activist, naturalist, Co-director of PLATFORM (promoting creative processes of democratic engagement to advance social and ecological justice), London.
The impact of the oil and gas industry (especially BP and Shell) on the global climate and our lives

Dan Hicks
Lecturer and Museum Curator, Oxford University. Fields of research: archaeology of the modern world, socio-cultural anthropology, heritage of the recent past, material culture studies. Recent publications include "The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology" (2006), Cambridge.
The afterlives of everyday things: The archaeology and anthropology of the contemporary material world

Joshua Sofaer (via skype from Japan)
Artist who is centrally concerned with modes of collaboration and participation. He acts as curator, producer or director of a broad range of projects, including large-scale events, intimate performances, and publications. At present he is artist in residence at ARCUS, Ibaraki, Japan.
Garbage and recycle. The garbage collection system and recycling facilities in Moriya, Japan

John Davies
Narrative landscape photographer, short-listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2008. Curated "Cities on the Edge" photography book and exhibition in November 2008, Liverpool.
The demolition and privatisation of public urban green open spaces in Liverpool. From the Garden Festival Site Promenade to Stanley Park, etc

Sofie Nielsen and Tom Sumner
Product and Interior Designer, both in their first year at Liverpool John Moores University, Tom is from Merseyside and Sofie is from Copenhagen.
Wasted culture/cultured waste: Recycle for yourself or for the community? What would you do with the Garden Festival Site?

-- Paul Auster

David Hering
Currently writing his PhD thesis in Postmodern American Literature at the University of Liverpool. He is a specialist on David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon and Paul Auster.
Mirrors, Mazes, Madnesses: A Retelling of Paul Auster's "City of Glass" (1985)

-- Italo Calvino

Lindsay Sekulowicz
Artist, currently based in London, and working in collaboration with museums including "Museo La Specola", The Museum of Natural History in Florence, Italy.
A retelling of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" (1974)

-- T.S. Eliot

David Hering
Currently writing his PhD thesis in Postmodern American Literature at the University of Liverpool. He is a specialist on David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon and Paul Auster.
Destruction and return: A retelling of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (1922)

-- Georges Perec

Lindsay Sekulowicz
Artist, currently based in London, and working in collaboration with museums including "Museo La Specola", The Museum of Natural History in Florence, Italy.
A retelling of Georges Perec's "Life: A Users Manuel" (1978)

-- Thomas Pynchon

Ian Copestake
Earned his PhD from Leeds University in 2000 and went on to serve as a Research Fellow at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany. He is a specialist in 20th Century American Poetry.
W.A.S.T.E. (WE AWAIT SILENT TRISTERO'S EMPIRE) A retelling of Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" (1966)

-- civic

Roger Hill
Live artist, living and working in Liverpool.
A city of broken promises. Or Liverpool's love for degeneration

-- cyclic

Gerry Fitzpatrick
Owner of second hand bookshop Reid of Liverpool.
Life cycles and recycles: Births, deaths and marriages as experienced by a second hand book dealer

-- female/ male

Jayne Casey
Former member of Liverpool punk band Big in Japan and Head of Communications at Cream Nightclub, she was also the Creative Director for the launch event of Liverpool's Capital of Culture year.
The invention and performance of a typical Liverpudlian female identity: Girlish vulgarity (and how it reflects and traverses masculine projections)

-- in/ out

Tony Hughes
Managing Director of GDM Facilities and Training, which provides security services in Liverpool, Merseyside, North West England and the Midlands. Has worked in the security industry for over 20 years.
How does a modern day door supervisor spot an undesirable? The art of client selection

Berni Turner
Executive Member for Environment, she is also Liverpool City Councils' Historic Environment Champion. She has a special interest in environment, sustainability and climate change.
How to deal with the contaminated hole in the ground

Paul Domela
Programme Director of Liverpool Biennial and Deputy Chief Executive between 2001-2007. Responsible for international collaborations. With Liverpool John Moores University he invited Martha Rosler Library and Shrinking Cities to Liverpool in 2008.
Raqs Media Collective: "With Respect to Residue", from place mat to tabula rasa

Robin Riley
Artist, gardener, sculptor and conservationist at St. James' Cemetery, Liverpool.
The conservation of St. James' Cemetery

Rebecca Shanks
Speech and Language Therapist who works with children aged 4-16 in mainstream primary schools in North Wales.
Facilitating the art of storytelling: Teaching children to retell and generate their own narratives

Bryan Biggs
Artistic Director of the Bluecoat, record collector and visual artist who lives in Liverpool.
1. Mining the Vinyl Junkyard: sonic treasures retrieved from a reservoir of discarded discs
2. Fashionably forgotten: Esquivel, Scott Walker, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and other waste wax, now waxed lyrical

Paul Du Noyer
Editor of music magazines Q and Mojo, journalist for NME, The Word, Author of "Liverpool - Wondrous Place. From the Cavern to the Capital of Culture" (2004), based in Liverpool.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day: the circulation of values and commodities in the music industry. With sound examples

James Wishart
Writer and Head of Composition in the School of Music at the University of Liverpool. He is currently in the process of composing "Maggie Bitch", an opera on the life of Margaret Thatcher. Also broadcasts on the topic of music on various radio stations.
Noise becomes sound. Musique concrète: Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaeffer. Music for the future: Edgar Varese. Acousmatic music: Trevor Wishart. With sound examples

Tomke Lask
Social Anthropologist who works in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool. She is a specialist in Urban Anthropology.
We are the culture: Creating cultural space in Liverpool by reappropriating urban space

Paul Harfleet
Artist and Curator. Five years ago he formulated The Pansy Project, an ongoing artwork that involves the planting of pansies at sites where he has experienced homophobia. He has since taken the project across the UK and beyond.
The horticultural reclaimation of urban wasteland: The Pansy Project and other methods of Guerrilla Gardening

-- metal

Rob MacDonald
Reader in Architecture at the Liverpool School of Art & Design, Liverpool John Moores University. Practising Architect and Vice President of the Liverpool Architectural Society.
Metal recycling in Seaforth and shipping to China

-- space

Gregory Scott-Gurner
Curator and Co-director of The Art Organisation, which has co-opted eleven privately owned buildings across Liverpool.
Reuse and recycling in practice - the story of The Art Organisation

David Dunster
Architect, Roscoe Professor of Architecture, University of Liverpool.
Demolition as concept, lack of future vision: The value of buildings and architecture in Liverpool

Paula Ridley
Chair, Liverpool Biennial, former Chair Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
What is the value of art, who values it and why?

Helen Brady
Novelist, poet and actress, mother of seven children. In her early seventies she graduated from The Ruskin College, Oxford and from Liverpool John Moores University with a BA(hons) in Imaginative Writing.
How to actualize a childhood ambition after 55 years. An autobiographical story

Caspar Jones
Spatial artist and Lecturer in Interior Design at Liverpool John Moores University.
We built with mud. Searching for counterstrokes in a climate of overproduction and consumption in design

Karin Harrasser
Philologist and Cultural Studies Scholar, Director of the Science Communications Research Association in Vienna, research work at Vienna University and the Humboldt University in Berlin on the history of prosthetics, Vienna/Berlin.
Poor things. Bruno Latours collections. How things become agents in political assemblies

Lois Keidan
Co-founder and Director of the Live Art Development Agency, London, which offers resources, professional development schemes and projects and initiatives for the support and development of live art practices and critical discourses in London, the UK and internationally.
Shit, piss, blood, sweat, and tears: Bodily functions in performance

Lena Simic and Gary Anderson
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home is a home-run artist activist initiative, run out of the spare room of a council house in Everton, Liverpool.
Towards a sustainable arts practice

RETELLING (see Ghost Library)

Gerry Fitzpatrick
Owner of second hand bookshop Reid of Liverpool.
Local and non-local production. Is technology stripping us of our resourcefulness?

Ramsey Campbell
Has been writing short stories and novels set on Merseyside for forty years. The Oxford Companion to English Literature calls him "the most respected living British horror writer."
"The Grin of the Dark" (2008): The online wasteland

Daniel Simpkins
Artist and Curator based at The Royal Standard studios in Liverpool. His practice is context-responsive, and centres on social and cultural issues prevalent in post-industrial and globalising urban environments.
30 minutes in silence

Margi Clarke
Actress and presenter on City Talk radio. Her films include "Letter to Brezhnev" (1985), "Blonde Fist" (1991) and "24 Hour Party People" (2002).
Soul Rinse: Wash day for yer' insides!

The Vacuum Cleaner
Cultural resistance collective of one fashioning radical social and ecological change, attempts to disrupt concentrations of power.
A load of rubbish: From waste to tools of beauty and resistance

Soumhya Venkatesan
Social Anthropologist at the University of Manchester. Research interests include objects and their agency, art and craft, and Hindu ritual. Regional expertise: India.
From stone to God and back again. Transformations in South Indian Hinduism

John Davies
Narrative landscape photographer, short-listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2008. Curated "Cities on the Edge" photography book and exhibition in November 2008, Liverpool.
"I don't believe in the concept of waste land", showing pictures from the British Landscape

Nina Edge
Artist and spokesperson for local residents group The Welsh Streets Home Group, who have campaigned to renovate rather than demolish useful housing.
The Welsh Streets are laid to waste whilst Liverpool's housing waiting list grows to 40,000. Find out why

Roger Hill
Live artist, living and working in Liverpool.
A city of broken promises. Or Liverpool's love for degeneration

see also Rhetorics of the Dialogue and Shadow Play for a Dialogue Duo