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ConferenceRGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2018Geographical landscapes / Changing landscapes of geographyCardiff, Tuesday 28th August – Friday 31st August 2018Session Call for PapersUTILITY AFTER ABANDONMENT?The New Ruin as Cultural Asset and Public SpaceSession sponsored by the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (of the RGS-IBG)Convenors: Luke Bennett (Sheffield Hallam Uni.), Ed Hollis (Univ. of Edinburgh), Hayden Lorimer (Univ. of Glasgow), Ruth Olden (Univ. of Glasgow)------------------During recent years, across the arts and humanities, and associated cultural spheres of literature, cinema, architecture, heritage, urban exploration and curated art, interest has intensified in ruinenlust, ruins and ruination (Edensor 2005; DeSilvey and Edensor 2012; Lavery and Gough 2015; Bennett 2017). Ruminating on the ruin has come to be understood as a sensibility reflective of classical, romantic and picturesque tropes. However, other modes of social engagement are possible.Learning how to live with ruins is a twenty-first century challenge requiring cultural articulations that are forward-thinking and experimental, acknowledging new models of intervention, ownership and access, and welcoming contrasting – even conflicting – forms of aesthetic and emotional attachment (DeSilvey 2017; Hollis 2010; Lorimer and Murray 2015).Nationally and internationally, there are a multitude of valued heritage landscapes, currently in ruinous, vulnerable, degraded states, requiring differing forms of creative intervention for the purposes of rehabilitation, re-occupation and reinvention, so as to safeguard cultural legacies for the future. For this session we seek not only statements of intent, but also critical reports on activities already occurring in cities under austerity and non-urban landscapes, in the global north and global south, where ruins are being reimagined and repurposed as cultural assets and public spaces.The session’s convening team represent a variety of perspectives on the reimagining and repurposing of ruins, variously undertaking studies and investigations ranging across landscape design and architectural history, cultural geography, law and risk management. We welcome contributions that reflect and/or go beyond this constellation of interests, and which embrace (or challenge) our view that open interdisciplinarity is the best way to understand and activate the potentialities of the contemporary ruin.In sum, session presentations/contributions are sought which variously address three connected questions:- How do you activate modern ruins safely?- How do you activate modern ruins creatively?- How do you activate modern ruins collaboratively?Please send expressions of interest/abstracts (250 words max.) and a title to:Ruth Olden (Ruth.Olden@glasgow.ac.uk) by Monday 5th February 2018.