The Burrows Lecture: past speakers have included Andrew Motion, Simon Lyster,
John Tusa, Margaret Drabble, Ruth Rendell, Shirley Williams and Sir Nikolaus
Pevsner.
The Burrows Lecture: 2011
‘Time and Tide: The moral theatre of the Essex
shoreline’
Professor Ken Worpole
Too place on Wednesday 30 March
In association with the Essex Book Festival
The landscape of Essex rarely features in any discussion of Beautiful
Britain, yet the county's extensive littoral of sea-coast, estuaries and river
edges, provides, for those who care to explore, one of the most dramatic and
shapeshifting landscapes to be found anywhere in the world. It is a landscape
both mysterious and full of natural theatre.
Much of this is due to its high tidal range, which means that some of the
most important natural habitats spend half the time under water. Furthermore, as
this is a landscape which requires to be negotiated on foot or by water, it
avoids the public relations casuistry of 'the tourist gaze'.
In this lecture, writer Professor Ken Worpole challenges existing notions of
what is beautiful and meaningful about landscape today, particularly in a time
of ecological concern, and argues that it is on the borderline between land and
sea that many of our most pressing environmental and moral concerns are
highlighted.
Professor Ken Worpole is the author of many books on social policy, landscape
and architecture. He was a member of the UK government's Urban Green Spaces Task
Force, and an Adviser to the Commission for Architecture and the Built
Environment (CABE). His books include, Here Comes the Sun: architecture and
public space in 20th century European culture (2001), Last Landscapes: the
architecture of the cemetery in the West (2003), and, with photographer Jason
Orton, 350 Miles: An Essex Journey (2005). The Independent newspaper noted that,
'For many years, Ken Worpole has been one of the shrewdest and sharpest
observers of the English social landscape.' He is a Senior Professor in The
Cities Institute at London Metropolitan University.