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Duncan, Ifor and Levidis, Stefanos. 2020. Weaponizing a River. e-flux Architecture,
Dr Ifor Duncan
Staff details
Ifor focuses on the spatial and cultural implications of devastated of watery ecosystems.
Ifor Duncan is a writer, artist and inter-disciplinary researcher with a specific focus on the overlaps of political violence with degrading watery spaces, processes, and materialities. He encounters these concerns through visual cultures, cultural memory, and a fieldwork practice that involves submerged audio-visual storytelling methods.
Ifor completed his PhD entitled Hydrology of the Powerless at the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA), Goldsmiths, which addressed the ways hydrologic properties (flows, mud, rain, fog ...) are instrumentalised through border regimes, as technologies of obfuscation, and weaponised against marginalised communities.
He was postdoctoral fellow in the Environmental Humanities at the New Institute Centre for the Environmental Humanities (NICHE), Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice (2020-22), and has been a visiting lecturer in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art.
Academic qualifications
- PhD Research Architecture (Goldsmiths, University of London) 2021
- MA Cultural Theory (University College London) 2013
- BA English Literature and History (University of Leeds) 2010
Research interests
Research areas: Environmental humanities and watery humanities, visual cultures, spatial practices, postcolonial and decolonial theory, border studies, memory theory, practice-led research.
Featured publications
2020: Ifor Duncan & Stefanos Levidis, ‘Weaponizing a River,’ E-Flux Architecture (2020)
2021:
Ifor Duncan, Il Naufragio Inizia da Qui / The Shipwreck Starts Here
Film screened at SAVVY contemporary (Berlin), Cinema Galleggiante (Venice), Cloud Sediments Ambika P3 (London) and elsewhere.
2023: Ifor Duncan, 'Necro-Hydrology,' in E-Flux Architecture (2023)
2022:
Ifor Duncan, ‘Drought in the Rivers of Forgetting’
in Benek Cincik & Tiago Torres-Campos eds. Postcards from the Anthropocene: Unsettling the Geopolitics of Representation
Ifor Duncan, ‘The Meteorological Occult: Submergences in the Venetian fog’, Venice Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 2021, vol.1:1, pp. 37-5
Publications and research outputs
Article
Duncan, Ifor. 2023. Fugitive Rivers: Maroon Ecologies and Édouard Glissant’s La Lézarde. Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, ISSN 1468-8417
Duncan, Ifor. 2023. Necro-Hydrology. e-flux Architecture,
Duncan, Ifor. 2021. The Meteorological Occult: Submergences in the Venetian Fog. Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities, 1(1), pp. 37-58. ISSN 2785-2709
Book Section
Duncan, Ifor. 2022. Drought in the Rivers of Forgetting. In: Benek Cincik and Tiago Torres-Campos, eds. Postcards from the Anthropocene: Unsettling the Geopolitics of Representation. Barcelona: dpr-barcelona, pp. 140-147. ISBN 9788494938870
Duncan, Ifor and Levidis, Stefanos. 2022. 'Arcifinious'. In: José Roca and Juan Francisco Salazar, eds. Rīvus: A Glossary of Water. Sydney, Australia: Biennale of Sydney Ltd 2022, pp. 47-48. ISBN 9780958040327
Duncan, Ifor. 2019. Undercurrents: Submergence and the Hidroituango Megadam. In: Lindsay Bremner, ed. Monsoon [+ other] Waters. London: A Monsoon Assemblages Publication, pp. 19-27. ISBN 9780992965709
Conference or Workshop Item
Duncan, Ifor and Levidis, Stefanos. 2024. 'Weaponising a river / Median Line: a century of border violence and the alluvial geopolitics of the Evros/Meric/Maritsa River border'. In: War & Water: A seminar on toxicity, multispecies politics and waterways. Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom 7 March 2024.
Edited Journal
Duncan, Ifor and Vallerani, Francesco, eds. 2023. Coastal Waterways, Cultural Heritage and Environmental Planning, Shima, 17(2). 1834-6057
Film/Video
Duncan, Ifor. 2021. Il Naufragio Inizia Da Qui (The Shipwreck Starts Here).
Show/Exhibition
Duncan, Ifor. 2024. River Cinema I. In: "River Cinema I", Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom, 14 March 2024.
Conferences and talks
2022:
‘Weaponizing a River’
Media Lecture with Stefanos Levidis at Rīvus Biennale of Sydney
2022:
‘Hydrology of the Powerless (Weaponizing a River)’
Media Lecture at Confluence, CCA Glasgow
2022:
‘Weaponizing a River’
Media Lecture at Rivers and Borders, in collaboration with the exhibition Al río / To the River by Zoe Leonard, MUDAM Museum (The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg)
2022:
‘Precipitations’
Convened Chapter 1 of the Lecture Series Waterscapes at NICHE Ca’ Foscari with Sarah Nuttall and Melody Jue.
2019:
‘Venice is Leaking’
Co-Convened seminar at Anthropocene Campus Venice: Water Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene