Simon Ford
@simonford.bsky.social
I investigate the effects of capital on the landscape. Through long-term research and artistic production, my work examines how economic forces shape lived experience, ecology and place. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/
Art as Cognitive Mapping or, the Labour and Pleasure of Knowledge.
Fredric Jameson reflects on the inevitable failure built into his concept of cognitive mapping. A Sisyphean process that must continually be taken up again. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/some-fragm...
Fredric Jameson reflects on the inevitable failure built into his concept of cognitive mapping. A Sisyphean process that must continually be taken up again. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/some-fragm...
January 18, 2026 at 8:17 PM
Art as Cognitive Mapping or, the Labour and Pleasure of Knowledge.
Fredric Jameson reflects on the inevitable failure built into his concept of cognitive mapping. A Sisyphean process that must continually be taken up again. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/some-fragm...
Fredric Jameson reflects on the inevitable failure built into his concept of cognitive mapping. A Sisyphean process that must continually be taken up again. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/some-fragm...
First Nature and Second Nature as Hostile Ground: Adorno’s Theory of Natural History in Practice
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/first-natu...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/first-natu...
January 11, 2026 at 10:56 AM
First Nature and Second Nature as Hostile Ground: Adorno’s Theory of Natural History in Practice
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/first-natu...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/first-natu...
January 11, 2026 at 10:52 AM
The Blaenserchan Project as Cognitive Mapping: Pedagogy and the Community Arts in Late Capitalism
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
January 11, 2026 at 10:51 AM
The Blaenserchan Project as Cognitive Mapping: Pedagogy and the Community Arts in Late Capitalism
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
The Blaenserchan Project: a Methodological Framework
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
The Blaenserchan Project: a Methodological Framework
1. Research Orientation and Core Task
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com
January 11, 2026 at 10:50 AM
The Blaenserchan Project: a Methodological Framework
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
Some thoughts on interdisciplinary research: the constellation as co-operative form
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
January 11, 2026 at 10:48 AM
Some thoughts on interdisciplinary research: the constellation as co-operative form
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
Some thoughts on the subject, form and the aesthetic in The Blaenserchan Project
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
January 11, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Some thoughts on the subject, form and the aesthetic in The Blaenserchan Project
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
theblaenserchanproject.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
January 11, 2026 at 10:47 AM
A new project, The Blaenserchan Project, will interpret this South Wales landscape as a contested space of capital, nature and history. Over an 8 year period it will be a diaristic inquiry ending at the 50th anniversary of the 1984-85 miners' strike landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
The Blaenserchan Project
Introduction to the Blaenserchan Project
landscapeasdissection.substack.com
January 3, 2026 at 1:21 PM
A new project, The Blaenserchan Project, will interpret this South Wales landscape as a contested space of capital, nature and history. Over an 8 year period it will be a diaristic inquiry ending at the 50th anniversary of the 1984-85 miners' strike landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/the-blaens...
A collection bucket used during the 1995–98 Liverpool dockworkers’ strike. I came across it at a friend's house who was once head of printmaking, at Bradford School of Art, known to some, affectionately, as The Socialist Republic of Printmaking. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/a-collecti...
A collection bucket for the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike
The collection bucket was used during the Liverpool dockworkers’ strike of 1995–1998 strike, specifically for a Christmas appeal in 1996.
landscapeasdissection.substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:38 AM
A collection bucket used during the 1995–98 Liverpool dockworkers’ strike. I came across it at a friend's house who was once head of printmaking, at Bradford School of Art, known to some, affectionately, as The Socialist Republic of Printmaking. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/a-collecti...
As 2025 closes, so too does the 40th anniversary of the 1984–85 miners’ strike. This essay reflects on my time as a miner, today’s politics in ex-mining areas, and the growing support for Reform and their idealised poaching of working-class history. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/pithead-ba...
The Pithead Baths, Wyndham Colliery, Upper Ogmore Valley, South Wales, c.1928
As we approach the end of 2025, which also marks the end of the 40th anniversary year of the 1984–85 miners’ strike, this short essay reflects on my own experience of working as a miner.
landscapeasdissection.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 10:57 AM
As 2025 closes, so too does the 40th anniversary of the 1984–85 miners’ strike. This essay reflects on my time as a miner, today’s politics in ex-mining areas, and the growing support for Reform and their idealised poaching of working-class history. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/pithead-ba...
Capital as natural history
December 28, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Capital as natural history
Capital as natural history
December 28, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Capital as natural history
Capital as natural history
December 28, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Capital as natural history
Capital as natural history
December 28, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Capital as natural history
This photo prompted a reflection on my own experience as a miner and Theodor Adorno’s analysis of the re-emergence of fascism—his prescient argument has proved correct: that such tendencies would reappear, if anywhere, first in the United States. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/theodor-w-...
Theodor W. Adorno’s visit to a colliery in the Ruhr in 1954, the rise of the far right and my own experience working as a miner
This photograph prompted a reflection on my own experience as a miner and the work of the Frankfurt School, particularly Theodor Adorno’s analysis of, and resistance to, the re-emergence of fascism—hi...
landscapeasdissection.substack.com
December 27, 2025 at 11:23 AM
This photo prompted a reflection on my own experience as a miner and Theodor Adorno’s analysis of the re-emergence of fascism—his prescient argument has proved correct: that such tendencies would reappear, if anywhere, first in the United States. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/theodor-w-...
1. Even today many decades after the end of heavy industry in this country the industrial landscape continues to yield a diverse array of what I call “remembering fragments”—objects imbuing the real and imaginary dimensions of the industrial past. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/unearthing...
Unearthing social-relations
Even today many decades after the end of heavy industry in this country the (post) industrial landscape continues to yield a diverse array of what I call “remembering fragments”—objects imbuing the re...
landscapeasdissection.substack.com
December 26, 2025 at 9:44 AM
1. Even today many decades after the end of heavy industry in this country the industrial landscape continues to yield a diverse array of what I call “remembering fragments”—objects imbuing the real and imaginary dimensions of the industrial past. landscapeasdissection.substack.com/p/unearthing...
2. Approaching history from a materialist perspective—as I do—much time is devoted to intensive, almost archaeological, exploration of these landscapes. This involves scavenging for the forgotten and disclaimed: the kind of discarded debris that remains outside the reach of recuperative narratives.
December 26, 2025 at 9:42 AM
2. Approaching history from a materialist perspective—as I do—much time is devoted to intensive, almost archaeological, exploration of these landscapes. This involves scavenging for the forgotten and disclaimed: the kind of discarded debris that remains outside the reach of recuperative narratives.
3. Esoteric objects, that so captivated Walter Benjamin, have an integrity precisely because they resist assimilation into the spectacle of consumer capitalism. Retaining the real of their use-value, their “social-relations”, as objects enmeshed, once, in the production and social process.
December 26, 2025 at 9:40 AM
3. Esoteric objects, that so captivated Walter Benjamin, have an integrity precisely because they resist assimilation into the spectacle of consumer capitalism. Retaining the real of their use-value, their “social-relations”, as objects enmeshed, once, in the production and social process.
4. Even so, as the past is increasingly subsumed by the consumer spectacle, these critical fragments become harder to locate. They are now most often found in ever more marginalised places and take the form of increasingly obscure or arcane objects.
December 26, 2025 at 9:40 AM
4. Even so, as the past is increasingly subsumed by the consumer spectacle, these critical fragments become harder to locate. They are now most often found in ever more marginalised places and take the form of increasingly obscure or arcane objects.
5. It was such a place I discovered this rusted fishplate—an iron fitting once used to join segments of underground roadway supports—beside a plastic “Wonderloaf” bread bag matted, too, in the coal spoil, dating from the 1970s or early 1980s, as indicated by its typographic style.
December 26, 2025 at 9:40 AM
5. It was such a place I discovered this rusted fishplate—an iron fitting once used to join segments of underground roadway supports—beside a plastic “Wonderloaf” bread bag matted, too, in the coal spoil, dating from the 1970s or early 1980s, as indicated by its typographic style.