THE EARTH, THE SKY AND THE GROUND BETWEEN | A lecture by Tim Ingold

Online-participation via Zoom. The Zoom-link will be announced shortly before the lecture starts. 

The ground is a surface, says the dictionary, upon which things or persons stand or move. But this leaves many questions unanswered. What kind of surface is this? Does it have one side or two? Does it cover the earth or cover it up? Can you roll it, fold it, cut it or make holes in it? What lies above, and what beneath? Does the ground separate the earth from the sky, or is it formed in their intermingling? In this lecture Tim Ingold argues that the ground is caught in a double movement, of opening up and closing off, formation and encrustation, thanks to which its inhabitants are at once confidently supported and precariously afloat. Herein lies the art of burial. 

Tim Ingold is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018), Correspondences (2020), Imagining for Real (2022) and The Rise and Fall of Generation Now (2023). Ingold is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2022 he was made a CBE for services to Anthropology.

Read more about Tim Ingold - timingold.com

The lecture is part of the "All My Relations IV: Nomadic Encounters as PhD course" organised jointly by Agenda 2030 Graduate School (Lund University) and Artistic Research (Malmö Theatre Academy, Lund University). Read more about "All My Relations IV" here.