ART, SCIENCE & THE

THIRSTY WORLD
An interdisciplinary dialogue on
creative responses to the global water crisis

Who Owns It? Christine Destrempes 2007, www.destrempes.com

A critical exploration of interdisciplinary

practice through collaborative presentations
and performances - facilitating dialogue
between researchers and practitioners in the
arts, sciences and engineering in order to foster
creative, innovative and trans-disciplinary
discussions about water scarcity solutions

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD CONFERENCE

30 June 2014

CORNELL UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE

7-8 November 2014

Credit (top two photos): Jessica Thorn

A graduate conference exchange project supported by

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), Merton College (University of Oxford)
Cornells Institute for European Studies and the Brettschneider Fund (Cornell University)


Humanities Building
University of Oxford 30 June 2014
9:00
Tea/Coffee/Registration Seminar Room
9:15 Welcome/Keynote Dr Gail Holst-Warhaft
Session I Sigrid Holmwood, moderator
9:30 Presentation 1 Toby Young, Charles Ogilvie, Bombs to Blooms: an Exploded Retelling of the
(and Elizabeth Carter) Slow (and Fast) Death that Grew Out of the
Utopian Promise of Post-War Fertiliser Production
10:00 Presentation 2 Janet Banfield (and Cedric Mason) A Confluence of Concepts: Melding Scientific and
Artistic Perspectives on Hydrology of Natural and
Engineered Systems
10:30 Discussion Led by Sigrid Holmwood
11:00 Tea/Coffee
11:30 Panel Sigrid Holmwood, Dr Katrina Charles, Short presentations and responses by each of the panelists,
and Dr Francesca de Chtel, moderated followed by a group discussion.
by Dr Gail Holst-Warhaft
13:00 Lunch
Session II Dr Gail Holst-Warhaft, moderator
14:00 Presentation 3 Sara Davis (and Samantha Fernando) A Living Entity: Londons Water Network
14:30 Presentation 4 Avery Slater and Jessica Thorn Waters Future Age: Collective Transitions for
Farms, Fuel, and Livelihood
15:00 Presentation 5 Benedict Morrison, Victoria Ferris, The Enemy Within: Deactivating Helminth Eggs in
(and Zhu Dan) the Crusade for Clean Water
15:30 Discussion Led by Dr Gail Holst-Warhaft
16:00 Tea/Coffee
16:30 Conference reflections Dr Daniel Grimley
16:45 Group discussion Led by all panelists, Dr Daniel Grimley,
moderator
17:30 Break
18:30 Conference Dinner Royal Oak, Woodstock Road
 30 June 2014
University of Oxford
The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities
Seminar Room

SESSION ONE
Sigrid Holmwood, moderator

PRESENTATION I

Bombs to Blooms: an Exploded Retelling of the Slow

(and Fast) Death that Grew Out of the Utopian
Promise of Post-War Fertiliser Production

Toby Young (Music,Oxford)

Charles Ogilvie (Fine Arts, oxford)
Elizabeth Carter (Soil Science and Environmental Information Science, Cornell)

Toby Young and Charles Ogilvie presenting in Oxford

Presentation abstract
An update on the development of a collaborative work between composer, scientist
and visual artist. The project is focussed on the struggle with nitrogen pollution, its
industrial heritage, and the difficulties of engendering a cultural response to the
pitfalls in the ever spreading success of the second agrarian revolution.

Charles Ogilvie (Fine Arts, Oxford)

Charles Ogilvie is an artist and D.Phil research student at the Ruskin School of Art,
Oxford University. His practice encompasses making processes from the digital to
the traditional and he has developed and exhibited work with institutions as diverse
as Gloucester Cathedral, the Oxford Botanic Garden, the Saatchi Gallery and the
Victoria and Albert Museum. Charles' practice and research is focused on the
intersection of personal cultural experience with larger systems of knowledge
and ideas. Charles also has a background in sustainability and energy policy
having worked with firms such as GE and SERCO and having led Conservative
party policy development in this area prior to the 2010 election.

Toby Young (Music, Oxford)

Toby Young is a composer and writer from London, and a DPhil candidate at New
College, Oxford. Since studying with Robin Holloway at Cambridge, his music has
been performed by ensembles and orchestras including the London Symphony
Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Fretwork and
Endymion Ensemble, and many choirs including Westminster Abbey, King's College
Cambridge, and the BBC Singers. Toby is a college tutor at Oxford and visiting
fellow in creativity at Warwick. He writes regularly for numerous journals, including,
TEMPO and Popular Music, and is an occasional contributor to The Gramophone,
specialising in interdisciplinary creative processes, and Electronic Dance Music.
Outside of this, his research centres on the aesthetics and analysis of British post-
tonal music, looking in particular at the application of the application of semiotic
theory to the music of Nicholas Maw. With the director and writer Ruth Mariner,
Toby co-runs the London based arts collective Gestalt, who promote and develop
work that brings together cross-genre artists to create projects that incorporate
mixed-media, often including elements of multimedia, into traditional operatic
contexts. His works are published by Faber Music.

Elizabeth Carter (Soil Science and Environmental

Information Science, Cornell)
Elizabeth Carter has a longstanding interest in how public infrastructure can be used
to demonstrate the cultural, social, political, and economic values of a society.
Motivated by her technical shortcomings as a relief worker in post-Katrina New
Orleans, she received her degree in Soil Science, magna cum laude, from the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. During her senior year spent studying at
the Soil, Water, and Environmental Science program at the University of Arizona,
she worked for the Environmental Research Labs, and was inspired by diversity and
creativity of water resources research represented there. After graduation, she has
worked with rural wastewater treatment infrastructure in Western Massachusetts
and South America, as well as a consultant to a rural municipality seeking to develop
programs to support small-scale agriculture as a means of economic development.
Ms. Carter is currently pursuing graduate studies in Soil Science and Environmental
Information Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell
University. Ms. Carter hopes to be able to integrate qualitative and quantitative
approaches to characterizing complex human and environmental relationships while
pursuing a second masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering after completing
her current program.
 PRESENTATION II

Feeling the Green Hydrology

or
A Confluence of Concepts: Melding scientific and
artistic perspectives on hydrology of natural and
engineered systems

Cedric Mason (Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell)

Janet Banfield, (Geography and the Environment, Oxford)

Janet Banfield presenting in Oxford

Presentation abstract
This collaboration brings together the nonrepresentational geographical concerns of
one project partner relating to the pre-reflective aspects of human experience with
the scientific and engineering concerns of the other project partner relating to
environmental engineering and hydrology. It also brings together visual, musical, and
performative artistic/creative practices with scientific knowledge and engineering
practices. The initial phase of this collaboration is a dynamic artwork, illustrating
waters physical and vital characteristics, and revealing glimpses of scientific
perspectives and practice. The second phase is an interpretive contact dance
performance that incorporates video of the artwork in action, interspersed with
visual perspectives on hydrology and biology. An original musical score accompanies
the simultaneous video and dance routine; all three elements of the performance
draw on concepts of chemistry and environmental science as they relate to water.

The June conference in Oxford outlines this emerging collaboration and in particular
the conceptual development of the affectively oriented visual artistic response to
the scientific content. It also hints at the coalescence of these varied
interdisciplinary threads yet to unfold, through the closing material processes of the
visual artistic response and the performative conclusion to this collaboration at the
Ithaca conference in October.

Janet Banfield (Geography and the Environment,

Oxford)
Having graduated from Oxford in 1997 with a degree in geography, I have since
obtained an MSc in Environmental Science, Policy and Planning, and an MRes in
Psychology, and am currently awaiting Viva for my DPhil back in Geography. I have
also enjoyed a ten-year career, mostly in local government, covering a range of posts
from sustainable development officer through to senior management in corporate
and strategic policy. My professional affiliations reflect this diverse background, with
Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society and Associate Fellowship of the Higher
Education Academy, as well as Associate Membership of the Institute of
Environmental Management and Assessment, and Graduate Membership of the
British Psychological Society. My immediate research interests lie in uniting artistic
practice as explicatory technique with geographical concepts and spatial practices, in
order to generate a more implicitly-refined disciplinary tradition. More generally, I
seek to promote artistic practice as legitimate research practice not only for the
artistically trained or inclined but for all researchers as an alternative and productive
means of engaging with their academic material and issues.

Cedric W. Mason (Biological and Environmental

Engineering, Cornell)
Cedric Mason was born in 1981 in Denver Colorado, the second of five children,
and lived most of his childhood and adolescence in Massachusetts and Vermont,
USA. In school he excelled at physical science and mathematics but also developed
and cultivated a strong interest in the natural world, and in music, especially musical
composition and guitar performance. He continued to follow these interests at
Franklin and Marshall College, and graduated with a B.A. in 2003. From 2003 to
2007, Cedric lived in New York City where he worked as a lab assistant at Columbia
Universitys Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, helping to conduct paleomagnetic
research. He also performed original music with two rock groups at local venues. In
2007, He returned to Vermont to pursue his growing interest in sustainable
agriculture and worked for several years at Cedar Circle Farm on fruit and vegetable
production crews. During this time, he also wrote, recorded and independently
produced an experimental solo album that drew on concepts of astronomy,
biological evolution, and free-will. Cedric moved to Ithaca, New York in 2011 to join
the Soil and Water Group at Cornell University where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in
Biological and Environmental Engineering.
SESSION 2
Gail Holst-Warhaft, moderator

PRESENTATION III

A Living Entity: Londons Water Network

Samantha Fernando (Music, Oxford)

Sara Reynolds Davis (City and Regional Planning, Cornell)

Sara Davis Presenting

Presentation abstract
We often describe cities as living entities. Cities have heartbeats; souls; spirit;
energy. They are ALIVE.

Cities also have highly complex circulatory systems. Underneath our feet lie vast
circulatory systems composed of pumps and pipes. Water courses through these
networks, pumping fresh water to our faucets and carrying away waste for
cleansing. Like the heart, kidney, and arteries, our water infrastructure keeps cities
alive and healthy. A well maintained water infrastructure is a critical component of
good public health.

In this collaboration, Samantha Fernando and Sara Reynolds Davis explore the
history and present condition of modern water infrastructure with a focus on
London's water network. Beginning in the 17th century, London's engineers and
entrepreneurs led the way in developing water delivery and treatment systems to
provide safe drinking water to a burgeoning population. Waste water treatment
innovations quickly followed suit. By the early 20th century, a vast, reliable water
infrastructure was in place.

Today, London and many other modern cities face a new water dilemma. Aging
water infrastructure is quickly approaching the end of its service life. Cities struggle
with problems ranging from leaky pipes to water contamination.

New technologies and a better understanding of hydrology is helping engineers, city

planners, natural resource specialists, and policy makers implement better-informed
management strategies. Unfortunately, infrastructure investments are costly and
disruptive, and the public often only thinks about infrastructure when it is broken.

In order for modern cities to remain healthy into the future, they will need to
continue investing in innovative water operations. We hope this presentation will
encourage everyone to learn about, appreciate, and be inspired to invest in a
sustainable water infrastructure future.

Sara Reynolds Davis

(City and Regional Planning, Cornell)
How does water influence where humans choose to live? Sara has had a life-long
fascination with the impact of water on how towns and cities are
established. From the monsoon-drenched foothills of the Himalayas to the rain
forests of the Amazon, the desert oases of the Middle East and the agricultural
fields of Southeast Asia, human ingenuity in taming the water has given rise to
many great civilizations. The misunderstanding or misuse of water resources often
directly contributed to subsequent declines. Sara is currently studying how modern
societies handle various water infrastructure challenges. A better understanding of
water systems and watershed networks, in conjunction with improved technologies,
has inspired new approaches to procuring drinking water and managing
wastewater. The effects of climate change (too much water or too little water),
aging infrastructure systems, increased demand for water, and how to equitably
distribute water are just some of the pressures facing urban areas today. Sara
hopes to help shape informed water management practices around the globe and is
currently pursuing a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning at Cornell
University.

Samantha Fernando (Music, Oxford)

Samantha Fernando studied Composition at the Royal Academy of Music where she
was awarded a distinction for her Masters portfolio and the Charles Lucas Memorial
Prize. Prior to this, she read Music at the University of Oxford where she studied
composition with Robert Saxton. Her work has been performed internationally by
numerous ensembles including The London Sinfonietta, Xasax Saxophone Quartet
and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and at such venues as Kings Place, the Linbury
Studio (ROH), St. Martin-in-the-Fields and The Queen Elizabeth Hall. Notable
performances include Frozen Reflection, which was commissioned by the Aurora
Orchestra, was premiered at the Sounds New Festival 2009 in Canterbury and
broadcast by BBC Radio 3. In September 2012 Samantha was in residence at
Royaumont Abbey in France, where her Saxophone Quartet was premiered. Last
year, she was commissioned by the London Sinfonietta to write Positive/Negative
Space which was performed at the Southbank. As well as this, she was awarded an
RPS Composition Prize and was commissioned to write a new work for the
Philharmonia Orchestra as part of the Music of Today series. This was premiered in
May 2014 at the Royal Festival Hall. This year she is working on projects with
Vocaallab (Belgium), Festival dAix-en-Provence and Aldeburgh Music, as well as a
commission for the London Sinfonietta Shorts series.
 PRESENTATION IV

Waters Future Age: Collective Transitions for

Farms, Fuel, and Livelihood

Avery Slater (English, Cornell)

Jessica Thorn (Biodiversity Institute, Oxford)

Presentation abstract
This presentation approaches the problem of water scarcity through the future of
waters present usesand its past abuses. We combine narration of present
challenges faced by smallholder farmers, drawn from research conducted in
marginalized communities in the global south agricultural belts of Nepal and Ghana,
as well as urban slums in Kenya, with poetry concerning historic exploitation of
water resources in the global north (Aral Sea, Ogallala aquifer). Storytelling,
soundscapes and images will intersperse with poetry to illustrate how histories and
futures cross paths as local strategies adapt to global climatic change while
simultaneously helping to influence its future course.

The damaging technological practices and infrastructure that define large

agribusiness have contributed to overall depletion of fresh-water resources
worldwide. However, our project views the convergence of global environmental
change and population growth and migration as a moment requiring creative
solutions, not just techno-fixes, to address the vast water scarcity problem.
Worldwide trends of rainfalls increased intensity, shorter rainfall periods, flooding
and changing vectors of pests and water-borne diseases, are being countered by
local designs, as people across the globe develop their own strategies to adapt,
cope with change, build resilience and, ultimately, ameliorate the advanced state of
harm brought about by an age of corporate-technological recklessness.

Deleterious effects from the developed worlds fossil-fuel economies severely

impact those unable to buffer themselves in the developing world, whose own
decentralized effects of collective systems-degradation are often overlooked. Yet
many of these same populations are already working to create substantial, positive
impact against climatic change. Our presentation highlights how water
management, distribution, and accesson scales both large and small, historic and
present-dayinfluence livelihoods and well-being in local contexts and on distant
horizons. Commonalities experienced between water users worldwide have
relevance to concerned researchers and global citizens today.
Avery Slater (English, Cornell)
Avery Slater has just completed a Ph.D. in English Literature at Cornell University.
Her dissertation explores connections between late modernist poetry and advanced
technology. This past year she was the Andrew W. Mellon graduate fellow at the
Society for the Humanities for their yearly research theme, Occupation. During
this time she was also the recipient of a Sustainability in the Humanities grant to
research the recent toxic chemical spill in West Virginias Elk and Kanawha Rivers.
This fall she will begin a postdoctoral fellowship in English at the University of Texas
at Austin. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry (University of Washington) and an M.Phil. in
Culture and Criticism (University of Cambridge) where she specialized in the History
and Philosophy of Science. Her poetry has been published widely, most recently in
Poetry London, Literary Imagination, Parnassus, Raritan, Prairie Schooner, Poetry
Northwest, and Crazyhorse, and she is the 2014 recipient of the Corson Browning
poetry prize. She recently completed a translation of Paul Celans collection The No-
Ones Rose (1963), and her translations of four of his unpublished poems are
forthcoming from Tongue. Her critical workin comparative poetics, technology
studies, and film theoryhas appeared in or is forthcoming from Cultural Critique,
American Literature, and Thinking Verse. Currently completing a book manuscript
from her dissertation, she is also beginning work on a second project in comparative
ecopoetics, translation theory, and twentieth century philosophies of language.

Jessica Thorn (Biodiversity Institute, Oxford)

Jessica is a co-inspirer in a global movement advancing towards a new paradigm of
environmental sustainability and social equality. She is a researcher for Systemic
Integrated Adaptation, a multi-disciplinary researcher group conducting climate
adaptation planning programmes with small-holder farmers, and a third year Dphil
candidate in the Long Term Ecology land and Biodiversity Institute, Oxford. She
studies ecosystem services and well-being, food security, agriculture and
conservation beyond protected areas. Jessica holds a BSocSci in Environmental and
Geographical Science / Psychology (University of Cape Town), Honours in Human
Geography (University of Cape Town), and an MSc in Environmental Change and
Management (Oxford). She draws from experience of born in Namibia, raised in
South Africa, and working on of conservation, disaster risk reduction and public
service provisioning in 8 countries in South East Asia, Latin America, West and
Eastern Africa. She is passionate about creative means of communicating and living
solutions to persistent ecological degradation and poverty, organizing for financial
democratization, and planning to promote adaptive capacity to the impacts of
climatic variability and change.
 PRESENTATION V

The Enemy Within: Deactivating Helminth Eggs in

the Crusade for Clean Water

Benedict Morrison (English/Film, Oxford)

Victoria Ferris (Environmental Change and Management, Oxford)
Zhu Dan (Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell)

Presentation abstract
TBA

Victora Ferris
(Environmental Change and Management, Oxford)
I am a graduate research student, studying a Masters of Science in Environmental
Change and Management. My research focus is on water scarcity under the threat
of environmental change with sea level rise and coastal intrusion. My water
research is in rural Kenya with Oxford University's OxWater and Smart Handpump
programmes under the supervision of the Smith School's (SSEE) Dr. Rob Hope and
former Director of Oxford's Water MSc.

Zhu Dan
(Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell)
I am a graduate student pursuing master degree of Biological and Environmental
Engineering in Cornell University. Graduated from Dalian University of Technology, I
gained high GPA, several scholarships and different experience of various activities,
societies and voluntary jobs. As undergraduate major also in Environmental
Engineering, I have plenty of experience in experiment research and environmental
protection. My researches were mainly focused on water pollution control and
water quality supervision. I joined Campus Environment Monitoring Program and
Environmental Science Innovation Program during my undergraduate, respectively
involved monitoring the ambient noise and the concentration of oxynitride in the air
around the campus regularly, and using analytical methods to test the ability of
purifying water of target bacterial strain. Also, I once was a data analysis intern at
National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center in China. All these experience
helped to build me a foundation to deal with environmental crisis. With a thought of
keeping challenging and improving myself, I like learning and experiencing different
things. Travelling around the world, learning diverse culture, contributing the
abilities and energy to create a better world are always what I hope to do.
Benedict Morrison (English/Film, Oxford)
Benedict Morrison is a 2nd year DPhil student in English, researching notions of
articulacy and synthesis in film. He has written several short films and is contracted
to write a historical drama for television; he has also performed in a number of films
and theatre productions. He was commissioned to produce and direct a short
documentary about changing life in a rural village by Herefordshire County Council,
concentrating on how technological change has affected agricultural life; the project
began with a week-long series of seminars and classes on film-making, in which
local residents explored how the medium can facilitate discussion of these issues.
Benedict is currently writing on representations of gender and race in the Western.
He is convener of the English Facultys Twentieth Century Research in Progress
Seminar series, and runs a group which discusses the ethical concerns of early
twentieth century cinema.
 PANELISTS

Dr Gail Holst-Warhaft was born in Australia. In addition to being a

poet she has been a journalist, broadcaster, writer, academic, musician, and
translator. In the late 1970s, while conducting research on Greek music, she
performed as a keyboard-player with three of Greeces leading composers,
including Mikis Theodorakis. Among her many publications are Road to
Rembetika (1975, 4th edition 2006.Translated into Greek, French, Turkish,
German and Hebrew), Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek
Music (Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1980), Dangerous Voices: Womens Laments and
Greek Literature ( Routledge, 1992), The Cue for Passion: Grief and its Political
Uses (Harvard U.P., 2000), I Had Three Lives: Selected Poems of Mikis
Theodorakis (2005), and Penelopes Confession (poems, 2007), Losing
Paradise: the water crisis in the Mediterrean (2010). In 2014, together with
Francesca De Chatel and Tammo Steenhuis, she will publish a new volume
about water issues in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Holst-Warhaft directs a
program in Mediterranean Studies at Cornells Einaudi Center for International
Studies. For the last five years she has been conducting research and teaching
courses on problems of fresh water, especially in the Mediterranean region. With
hydrologist Tammo Steenhuis and Cornell graduate students, she has been working
on issues of water scarcity in the eastern part of Crete. She has also worked in local
schools, and in partnership with Cayenna Ponchione, she has been involved in two
Oxford-Cornell projects linking water research with the arts. Holst-Warhaft is an
adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature and Biological and Environmental
Engineering at Cornell University and was recently elected to the graduate field of
Music.

Dr Katrina Charles is a lecturer in the School of Geography and the

Environment at Oxford, and is the director for the MSc in Water Science, Policy and
Management. From an environmental engineering background, her current work
uses a multidisciplinary perspective to assess the barriers and catalysts to sanitation
access in informal settlements in East Africa. Throughout her career she has worked
on issues related to water and sanitation: public health, environmental fate and
transport of pathogens, impacts of climate change, and the role of communication
in improving access to safe water and adequate sanitation.

Dr Francesca de Chtel is a journalist, editor and author specialising in

water issues in the Arab world and Mediterranean region. Her recent work focuses
on water management in Syria. Francesca previously worked as the editor of
Revolve Water, a regional platform she created in 2011 as part of Revolve
Magazine to raise awareness of water issues in the Mediterranean region. Between
2006 and 2010, Francesca lived in the Syrian capital Damascus where she was the
editor-in-chief of Syria Today, the first independent English-language current
affairs magazine in the country. During this period, she also carried out extensive
research into water management and drought in Syria. She is the author of Water
Sheikhs and Dam Builders, Stories of People and Water in the Middle East
(Transaction Publishers/Rutgers University Press, 2007), a non-fiction book and
travelogue about the history, culture and politics of water in Middle East and North
Africa (MENA). Francesca holds a PhD from Radboud University in Nijmegen, The
Netherlands. Her doctoral thesis, Vanishing Water Landscapes in the Middle East:
Public Perceptions, Political Narratives and Traditional Beliefs Surrounding Water
and Scarcity in an Arid Region examines the influence of religious, technological and
political narratives on socio-cultural attitudes to water in MENA.

Sigrid Holmwood is a half Swedish, half British artist based in London. Her
practice is centred around her persona 'The Peasant Painter' through which she
researches connections between painting and agriculture, and the figure of the
peasant in relation to modernity. Recent solo exhibitions include 'A Peasant Painter's
Garden', ASC Gallery, London (2014); Sigrid Holmwood at Hallands Art Museum,
Halmstad, Sweden (2013), 'Painted Performances' at Upton House National Trust
(2012), 'Journey to WuMu' at Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2012) and Vitamin
Creative Space/The Pavilion, Beijing (2011). Group exhibitions include 'Detail' at H-
project space, Bangkok, Thailand (2014); Stag: Berlin/London, Dispari and Disapri
projects, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2013); 'Tatoo City', Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
(2012); 'Passage', Blindarte Contemporanea, Naples (2012); and the Saatchi
Gallery in Adelaide, at the Art Gallery of South Australia (2011). She is a visiting
tutor at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. She is currently working on a project
called 'Sistemas Efmeros' at Joya: Arte y Ecologa in the mountains of the Sierra
Mara los Vlez in Almera, Spain. It is an interdisciplinary project bring together
geologists, landscape archaeologists, ecologists and artists to work on an
abandoned water catchment system and seeks to bring a sense of value to the arid
land.

Dr Daniel Grimley is a University Lecturer in Music at Oxford, and tutorial

fellow at Merton College. His research is concerned principally with Music,
Landscape, and Cultural Geography, with particular reference to Scandinavia and
Finland (Grieg, Sibelius, Carl Nielsen) and early twentieth-century English music
(Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Delius). HIs books include Grieg: Music, Landscape and
Norwegian Identity (Boydell, 2006), Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism
(Boydell, 2010), and Sibelius and his World (Princeton, 2011). He is Principal
Investigator of the Leverhulme-funded network Hearing Landscape Critically, an
associate editor of the Musical Quarterly (OUP), and one of the convenors of the
interdisciplinary Environmental Humanities group at the Oxford Centre for Research
in the Humanities (TORCH).
Conference Committee
Cayenna Ponchione (Music, Oxford)
Benedict Morrison (English/Film, Oxford)
Jessica Thorn (Biodiversity Institute, Oxford)

Conference Administrator
Cayenna Ponchione is a 2nd year DPhil student in Music studying creativity in
orchestral practice. In addition to an extensive performance background as an
orchestral conductor and percussionist, she has been active in commissioning new
musical works and producing integrated concert programmes concerned with
environmental and humanitarian issues. Her most recent project Water-culture:
womens work(s), a symposium which brought together musicians, composers and
academics, was the winner of the recent TORCH-Smith School Mind the
Environmental Gap prize in music. Prior to coming to Oxford, Cayenna worked as
production manager for the Light in Winter Festival: An Annual Festival of Science
and the Arts.