What will be left to tell the story of humanity’s time on Earth in 10,000, a million or even a billion years?
Professor David Farrier will be leading an event at Wigtown Book Festival where he uses 10 items that were saved from landfill by being donated to the town’s Community Shop, to explore our past, present and distant future.
The author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils has a fascination using everyday objects to tell the extraordinary stories about the world we have created and the consequences of our actions.
His choices were a glass, thimble, vinyl LP, silk scarf, painting, book, computer camera, cutlery set, scuba diver’s booties and a cuddly toy.
David said: “The Community Shop is a great place to find things that are being given a new life by recirculating in the economy rather than ending up in landfill.
“Something I’ll be talking about is what happens when things do go to landfill. They don’t just disappear; many are very durable and have a future that stretches deep into time.”
Neoprene is extraordinarily long-lived and these days landfill sites are lined with a form of the material which stops anything leaching in or out.
So, the booties could survive for millennia and would provide an extraordinary amount of information to anyone who dug them up – our technology, the way we lived, our habits.
The picture of New York takes us even further forward to the time when, like dinosaurs, our world will only survive in fossil form.
David said: “So, what’s the long-term future for our cities? What will be left of New York, Shanghai, Tokyo or London in a million years?
“Land is generally either rising or sinking due to tectonic activity. Often we’re talking about millimetres or centimetres over hundreds of years. Combine that with sea level rise, and you have a perfect recipe for fossilisation.
“Shanghai, built on soft ground, is sinking much faster – around two and a half metres already, and with seas rising it could eventually fossilise.
“Everything on the surface will erode away. But subways, the deep roots of skyscrapers, subterranean shopping centres, all that will be preserved. The biggest cities will be legible in the future fossil record a million, 10 million, even 100 million years.”
The vinyl LP takes us to David’s final point in the future. It features Mozart’s Magic Flute, one of the pieces of music on the Golden Discs placed on the Voyager I and II spacecraft, launched in 1977, which are heading out to the stars carrying messages from humanity.
He said: “I chose the LP so we could talk about the future of the arts. What’s the future of stories and music?
“The Golden Discs are a gesture as they are unlikely ever to be discovered.
“But they mean that in deep time, billions of years from now, when everything else is gone – including the Earth itself – there will still be the music of Mozart, along with natural sounds like the songs of birds and whales, travelling out there in space.”
The Aldi carrot will bring the audience back to the present, as a way of talking about food and what we are doing to the soil, while the camera offers a way to explore the vast quantities of e-waste we are creating with short-lived, throw-away electronics.
And the silk scarf moves us backwards in time, to the history of manufacturing and global trade, first of all through things like the Silk Roads.
According to David the economic forces they unleashed created our current consumer society, with all the impacts they have had on our world, our biosphere, our civilisation – and our chances of surviving as a species.
Find out about all 10 objects that David chose at his event Community Shop which is on 29 September at 4.30pm.
About the Community Shop:
- Established in 2012, Wigtown Community Shop began at 7 High Street and in 2019 moved to 34 South Main Street. In 2022, they took on an additional site at 27 North Main Street offering additional storage and another prime shopfront to display goods.
- Open six days a week and run entirely by a team of 30 volunteers. They receive donations of stock and undertake house clearances
- Charity and community organisations from within Wigtown and further afield across the Machars benefit from the distribution of funds raised through the shop, which total between £50k-£60k a year.
- Recycling doesn’t only apply to the resale of donated goods – electrical wares are taken for dismantling so the parts can be used to repair other goods and approximately 15 bags of clothes and fabrics (not fit for resale) are recycled each week.
-Ends-
Notes
- For more about Wigtown Book Festival see www.wigtownbookfestival.com
- This year’s Wigtown Book Festival has more than 250 events and takes place from 27 September to 6 October. See www.wigtownbookfestival.com.
- Too become a volunteer register your interest here.
- Donations to support the work of WFC are welcome.
About EventScotland
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About Creative Scotland
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. It enables people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. Creative Scotland distributes funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com. Follow us @creativescots and www.facebook.com/CreativeScotland.
For media information: Matthew Shelley at [email protected] or 07786 704299.
Wigtown Festival Company Ltd, 11 North Main Street, Wigtown, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, UK, DG8 9HN. Wigtown Festival Company Ltd is a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. Scottish Charity No. SCO3798