Recycling the Repository: a Zine Exploring Strathprints through Creative Practice

Welcome to Recycling the Repository, a zine born out of a workshop held at the University of Strathclyde in November 2022. Drawing on sources from the Strathprints repository and exploring innovative techniques of sampling, reappropriation, remix, collage, procedural writing, concrete works and blackout/erasure poetry, participants sought ways of defamiliarizing and recontextualising the fruits of their searching. The workshop prompted reflection on interdisciplinary research, ways of reading digitally and what happens when you 'unlock' marginalised, strange or unexpected elements of scholarly texts. In turn, we connected these techniques of research and experimental writing with environmental themes. Staff and student participants from all research backgrounds were invited to browse Strathclyde's rich selection of digital sources on topics such as sustainability, climate justice, renewable energies and materials, oceans, soil erosion and rewilding. Works below by Karen Veitch, Nicholas Starkey, Maria Sledmere and Mark Cohen explore textualities of corrosion and convergence, ignition, diffusion, atmospherics, rhizomatics and environmental fluctuation. We hope this zine is a galvanising point for further experimentation in the Strathprints repository. If you'd like to explore the writing exercises set in the workshop, you can access the entire handout and accompanying Powerpoint for free here: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/83217/