MCLC: Trauma and Utopia--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Voon Pow Bartlett <VoonPow.Bartlett at tate.org.uk>
Subject: Trauma and Utopia--cfp
*************************************************************

CALL FOR PAPERS
TRAUMA AND UTOPIA: INTERACTIONS IN POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN ASIA

International symposium organised by Tate Research Centre: Asia-Pacific,
London and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

Date: 9-10 OCTOBER 2014
Venue: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

SUBMITTING YOUR PAPERS
250 words abstract in English or 500 letters abstract in Japanese by 16
May 2014
Selected speakers should be prepared to submit their full text in English
or Japanese for review by 9 September 2014

Tate Research Centre: Asia-Pacific, London and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
welcome contributions to a two-day international research symposium on
artistic practices and discourses in Asia from 1945 to the present. This
symposium demonstrates the shared focus on research that Tate and Mori Art
Museum have developed in recent years, indicating an increasing need and
benefit of scholarly research for all aspects of museum activities. The
sessions interrogate how interdisciplinary and transnational artistic
experiments from across Asia address political, technological and
environmental changes as historical conditions to be celebrated or
resisted. Taking the specific characteristics of twentieth- and
twenty-first-century Japanese artistic cultures as a starting point, this
symposium aims to examine their interactions within and beyond the Asian
region as a whole. How have shifting geo-political concerns within the
region determined the flow of human, financial and cultural capital, and
affected the character of artistic production? How have artists in Asia
responded to the history of their own nations, but also to cross-cultural
and international concerns? The symposium also aims to generate
conversations and debates that cross disciplinary boundaries, by
addressing an artistic commitment to multimedia and interdisciplinary
practice. How have artists in Japan and Asia interacted with the
contemporary environment in collaborating with practitioners in
architecture, fashion, design and urban planning? What does it mean to
question boundaries between media when facing challenges posed by
technological development, increasing urban population and environmental
issues, challenges that find parallels throughout Asia?

We welcome papers that consider, but are not limited to:

The Urban Environment: City, Nature and Utopia

  *  how the physical geographic features of the Asian region have
determined artistic, architectural and design practices;
  *  social, population and humanitarian concerns and their impact;
  *  responses to natural disaster and environmental issues;
  *  artistic practice as a space for testing ambitious or fantastical
design, for modelling society, or for speculation on the future;
  *  the influence of scientific and technological achievements on
cultural production


The Human Body: Performance and Design

  *  gender, artistic and political identities;
  *  the body as a site, tool or subject for artistic enquiry within a
variety of media;
  *  the body as a nexus of interdisciplinary design approaches;
  *  the relationship of the body to its urban and natural environments,
and vice versa


Japan in Asia, Japan in the World: Conflict, Collaboration and Pan-Asian
Contributions

  *  artistic responses to war, occupation, revolution, imperialism,
displacement or migration;
  *  the role of memory, subjectivity, personal and official narratives in
artistic production;
  *  artistic engagement with radical politics;
  *  political contexts and social limits and their affect on artistic
production;
  *  performance art and its potential relationship to protest;
  *  the durability of local or national referents;
  *  the impact of diasporas on cultural dissemination


Please email abstract of up to 250 words in English or 500 letters in
Japanese for 20-minute papers and a short biography
totrc.asiapacific at tate.org.uk<mailto:trc.asiapacific at tate.org.uk> AND
pp at mori.art.museum<mailto:pp at mori.art.museum> by Friday 16 May 2014. The
papers can be presented in either English or Japanese.