News tagged:

social practice

  • CFP: Art as Cultural Diplomacy (Bologna, 14 - 15 Oct 16)

    CFP: Art as Cultural Diplomacy (Bologna, 14 - 15 Oct 16)

    Bologna, Italy
    October 14 - 15, 2016
    Deadline: Sep 9, 2016

    Art as Cultural Diplomacy: (Re)Constructing Notions of Eastern and Western Europe

    Part of the Fifth Euroacademia International Conference ‘The European Union and the Politicization of Europe’

    Panel Proposed by Cassandra Sciortino, University of California, Santa Barbara

    Panel Description:

    The panel “Art as cultural diplomacy” seeks papers that explore the function of art (in its broadest definition) as an instrument of cultural diplomacy by the state and, especially, by nongovernmental actors. The main theme of the session is the question of art and diplomacy in Europe before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Papers are welcome which explore issues related to the role of art, diplomacy and the politicization of the European Union and its candidate countries, as are those which consider how the arts have pursued or resisted East-West dichotomies and other narratives of alterity in Europe and worldwide. The panel seeks to combine a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how art—its various practices, history, and theory—are an important area of inquiry in the expanding field of cultural diplomacy.

    Some examples of topics include:
    ~ How can art serve as a neutral platform for exchange to promote dialogue and understanding between foreign states?
    ~ How can art, including organized festivals (i.e. film, art, music.)
    cultivate transnational identities that undermine dichotomies of East and West, and other narratives of alterity in Europe and beyond it?
    ~ The implications for art as an instrument of diplomacy in a postmodern age where geopolitics and power are increasingly mobilized by image based structures of persuasion
    ~ How has/can art facilitate cohesion between European Union member states and candidate states that effectively responds to the EU’s efforts to create “unity in diversity.”
    ~ The politics of mapping Europe: mental and cartographic
    ~ Community based art as a social practice to engage issues of European identity
    ~ The difference between art as cultural diplomacy and propaganda
    ~ The digital revolution and the emergence of social media as platforms
    for art to communicate across social, cultural, and national boundaries?
    ~ Diplomacy in the history of art in Europe and Eastern Europe
    ~ Artists as diplomats
    ~ Art history as diplomacy—exhibitions, post-colonial criticism, global art history, and other revisions to the conventional boundaries of Europe and its history of art
    ~ The international activity of cultural institutes

    For full details of the conference and on-line application please see:
    http://euroacademia.eu/conference/fifth-eu-and-the-politicization-of-europe/

  • CFP: Art and Social Practice in Eastern Europe after Socialism

    CFP: Art and Social Practice in Eastern Europe after Socialism

    We are pleased to announce call for paper proposals for the panel “Art and Social Practice in Eastern Europe after Socialism”, which will be a part of the 2016 Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC). The conference will take place on 27–30 OCT. 2016 UQÀM, Montréal http://www.uaac-aauc.org/montreal-2016

    The deadline for paper proposals is June 24, 2016

    After the collapse of Communism in 1989, former Soviet-bloc countries faced the urge to reintegrate art practice into the international art scene in order to revive national traditions as well as to reassess the Communist past. Nowadays, artists explore art as social practice, commenting on political and post-colonial activism, gender, and environmental issues, and addressing their concerns to a global audience. Eastern European artists deliberately or implicitly reframe the historical experience of former Socialist societies that had been developed under the Marxist ideas of a non-hierarchical society, social order in culture, and politically engaged art. How is the concept of socially significant, class-specific art now implemented and/or contested by artists and audience? We encourage scholars and art practitioners to reflect on how Socialist cultures influenced the contemporary cultural exchange. We invite prospective panelists to link the contemporary social agenda in art to the Socialist ideological background and intellectual legacy of post- Socialist countries. The organizers expect to bring together diverse approaches to the Socialist/social agenda of the past and its influence on visual culture of post-Socialist societies in a global perspective.

    Please, submit your paper proposals (150 words) and short one-page bios/CV to the session chairs:
    Hanna Chuchvaha, Sessional Instructor/Independent scholar, University of Alberta
    Maria Silina, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Université du Québec à Montréal