ART/CONFLICT: 16-18 NOV 2022

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We are excited to be holding our inaugural Hunar Conference, Art/Conflict, on 16th-18th November 2022 and you're invited! 

About the conference    

Supported and hosted by the University of Technology Sydney, this conference brings together theorists and practitioners of the arts. The past decade has posed new challenges for all those who believe in the human ability to reduce social inequalities, promote healthier ways to co-exist in society, and preserve essential natural resources. From macro forms of exploitation through globalizing demands, to the micro forms of oppression reproduced in our social interactions, our everyday lives have become more and more affected by the surrounding political and economic contexts, while the tools for recognizing and changing this reality have become more inaccessible to us. The COVID-19 outbreak demonstrated the urgency to address these challenges from a transnational perspective if we are to pursue better days in the future.    

Uruguayan historian Eduardo Galeano once asked, ‘What is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.’ In Hunar we believe that art, in all its forms, functions in a similar way, serving as a bridge between our utopic desires and the concrete possibilities for change. In this sense, it makes visible what has been deemed invisible, and speakable what has been deemed unspeakable, opening new paths to understand and overcome our social and political challenges.     

Across the world different forms of experimenting and producing art have been employed in order to account for conflicts in the present, in several cases blurring the borders of its own artistic field to do so. Hunar seeks to foreground the importance of creative work in producing imaginative, humorous, provocative, and unpredictable responses to conflicts both past and present. In this context, we challenge researchers and artists from around the globe to share their investigations, experiences, and practices to build with us an international and interdisciplinary dialogue about creative forms of resistance in landscapes of conflict.     

This is a three day series of  talks and presentations taking place in-person and online in November 2022. 

Delivered alongside an international art exhibition, the event seeks to amplify marginalised voices from across the globe by bringing together scholars and arts practitioners to explore imaginative and critical responses to conflict, and to reflect carefully on intersecting and ongoing histories of State violence, colonialism, dispossession, and other forms of traumatic social upheaval.     

Alongside the conference, the Hunar exhibition will showcase the works of practitioners collaborating with the project, including works streamed digitally from multiple international locations. The event concludes with a collaborative workshop between practitioners and researchers, drawing on themes emerging from the first two days. Finally, the Hunar conference will provide the basis for a selected Special Issue that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.    

Themes    

In this context, the conference welcomes both traditional approaches to arts and aesthetics, and practice-led research from academics and non-academics. We invite all interested to weave with us this cross-national web of experiential knowledge production by submitting abstracts related to artistic practices in contexts of violence and conflict, with a possible focus on topics including, although not limited to, the following:    

• Publics and counter-publics, participatory art, and emerging modes of artistic dissemination and engagement 
• Practice-based knowledge production and alternative epistemologies around arts and art theory 
• Postcolonial and decolonial approaches to arts and aesthetics 
• Curatorship, transforming institutions, and organisational challenges in the GLAM sector 
• Trauma-informed aesthetic theory and arts practice 
• The ethics of artistic and/or media representations around violence and conflict
• Feminist approaches to arts and aesthetics   

Formats    

The conference will be hybrid and welcomes submissions by individual speakers as well as panel proposals. We would love to have as many as possible in person, but will have online presentations to make sure we get breadth of perspectives. Panel proposals must identify a Chair, 2-3 speakers, and may include a disscussant. All panelists' bios and roles will need to be included in the bio field below. Please include email of primary contact in the email field.     

To accomodate international submissions, we are offering the option of submitting a pre-recorded video, in any language, of 15-20 minutes for individual speakers.    

Dates  

Abstract submissions open: 9am 28th February 2022   

Abstract submissions close: 11.55pm 7th August 2022 (CLOSED) 

Applicants notified: 17th August 2022 (CLOSED) 

Video submissions due between 9am 7th July 2022 and 11.55pm 1st October 2022 as MP4s.     

All times and dates are in Sydney, Australia time.     

Fees

Presenter fees can be paid via the conference registration page. There are a range of fee options available to ensure access to students, casuals, online and full-time employed contributors. 

Funded by the University of Technology's Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion through their competitive Social Impact Grant, and grant matched by the university's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.