Caroline Juby and Russell Martin, Friday 13 November 2009

“Life’s too short”

Considering time in an expanded sense, and looking at alternative practices as a way to reconsider contemporary craft, this dialogue is with and Caroline Juby, a PhD researcher in the geography department of Royal Holloway, University of London, who I contacted after reading an article she had written for the London Archaeologist.  I had assumed her practice – specialising in the Paleolithic past of London – is experienced in a very different way to most crafts makers, but there were subtle similarities, such as the way touch can provide access to different cultures and modes of thought, and an extension of the object’s existence past the lifetime of the practitioner.

Her dialogue, one of the longest one to one dialogues in the project, covers a huge range of topics, including:

• Climate change as an ongoing phenomenon spanning thousands of years
• Where modern peoples fit in the ‘narrative’ of history
• Haptic methodologies of experience and community
• The human species as one amongst many, simply trying to survive
• How even very ancient objects continue to accrue meaning and significance through the biographies and provenance of their owners
• The need for opportunism by the archaeological community in London

The dialogue took place in the Museum of London, which hosts the exhibitionLondon before London on London’s Paleolithic past.  We also reference the October 2009 In Our Time Radio 4 programme on the Geological Formation of Britain.

Visit this page to listen to their conversation…