Memorialization is a fascinating topic. Several theories exist around how and why we memorialize in the ways that we do, and how processes of remembering and forgetting occur in competition but also relate to and condition one another. Furthermore, different opinions have developed around how these processes come to inform the ways that we understand our identities and sense of place. This Yorkshire Gardens Trust online talk on September 17 will explore how different theories surrounding memorialization can enable us to understand what people think the roles of memorials are in Barnsley. The focus of the talk will be on Barnsley’s coal mining and war history, and the ways that memorials can either successfully or unsuccessfully convey messages about the past and therefore inform people’s understandings of the past and their place in the present.

John Land is a final year PhD student in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. His thesis explores the roles that memorials have for people in post-industrial communities and how landscapes of memory can be both sites of competing ideas and sites at which identity and a sense of place are molded. His specific interest is in Barnsley’s memorial landscapes, and the ways in which coal mining heritage is memorialized in very different ways to the town’s First and Second World War heritage. The different ways these pasts are memorialized can tell us more about how and why some pasts maintain relevance across time and how certain pasts come to inform identity. This individual session costs £8, and you may purchase it via Eventbrite HERE.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks .