CeMoRe: Centre for Mobilities Research: Lancaster University

The study of 'mobilities' is a newly emerging interdisciplinary field in which Lancaster University is developing particular strengths. The concept of 'mobilities' encompasses both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital, and information across the world, as well as the more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public space, and the travel of material things within everyday life. Recent developments in transportation and communications infrastructures, along with new social and cultural practices of mobility, have elicited a number of new research initiatives for understanding the connections between these diverse mobilities.

CeMoRe

CFP: Asian American Lit and Postcolonial Theory

We are seeking essays for an edited collection on "Asian American Literature and Postcolonial Theory," which should be both an exploration and a mapping of the debates around these two terms and their corollaries. Such corollary debates have erupted over the use of terms such as diaspora, cultural memory, racial melancholy and trauma, nationalism, ethnicity, and hybridity in Asian American cultural critique. Essays that consider these genealogies and/or question the usefulness of theories derived from colonial and postcolonial discourse are especially welcome. Also of interest would be specific author, period, regional, national, and textual studies that appropriate the tools of postcolonial theory or consider the inadequacy of such tools for Asian American contexts. We are concerned with the interdisciplinary dimensions of these debates in Asian American literature for ethnic studies, history, other cultural production, and political activism and theory. As the revision and updating of an established project, the collection has solid publication potential and interest.

Abstracts, proposals, and inquiries are welcome asap and before Sept. 1,
2005; email preferred. Submissions of 20-30 pg. manuscripts with brief CV
by Dec. 31, 2005, via Word attachment.

Contacts:

Wenxin Li, Ph.D.
English Department
Suffolk Community College
The State University of New York
wli79@yahoo.com

Katherine Sugg
Department of English
Central Connecticut State University

Critical Realism in Contemporary Art: around Allan Sekula's photography

Critical Realism in Contemporary Art: around Allan Sekula's photography
Leuven, Belgium
2-4 September 2005

Nineteenth century social realist thought translated itself into a
figurative-realistic painting and sculpture of which Constantin Meunier was one of the greatest exponents in Belgium. The Meunier exhibition that takes place from April to September 2005 in Leuven under the title "Meunier, a dialogue. Contemporary art meets Constantin Meunier in Leuven" is open to the grand public but also has a stong research aspect [organisation Stedelijk Museum in cooperation with K.U.Leuven]. Through the confrontation
between Meuniers work and contemporary visual art this exhibition has the ambition to discover how new forms of social realism are present in the current art field. It shows that photography today has taken over several key functions from the traditional artistic disciplines. This is particularly the case for the work of the American artist and critic Allan Sekula. His body of work is widely considered the most important international representative of what can be labelled as critical realism. In 2005 Sekula exhibits on a regular basis in Leuven, next to other artists such as Sven 't Jolle and Vincent Meessen.

The symposium attempts to create a dialogue between artistic researchers and theorists. One of its most central topics will be the possibility to (re)invent a socio-critical art in a globalised visual culture. Do the visual arts still have the potential to critically question the socio-political reality of today? Allan Sekula fulfills a key role within this discussion. He and other speakers will search a middle way in this dialogue.

Conference chairs:
Saturday: Hilde Van Gelder (K.U.Leuven)
Sunday: Jan Baetens (K.U.Leuven)


PROGRAMME

Friday September 2

18.00 World première of Allan Sekula's new film The Lottery of the Sea
[2005], accompanied by a keynote lecture by the artist


Saturday September 3

09.30-10.00 Opening Speech
Ludo Melis (Dean, Faculty of Arts, K.U.Leuven)

10.00-10.45 Postindustrial Topographics: Places of Labour in Contemporary
Urban Photography
Steven Jacobs (University of Ghent / Sint-Lukas Brussels)

10.45-11.15 Break

11.15-12.00 Photography: Seeing Time
Maarten Vanvolsem (K.U.Leuven)

12.00-12.45 "Painting through Photography". Critical reflections on the work
of Dirk Braeckman, Luc Tuymans and Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven in the early
1990s
Liesbeth Decan (K.U.Leuven / Sint-Lukas Brussels)

12.45-14.15 Lunch

14.15-15.00 Suspended Judgement: Photography in the Time of the Archive
David Green (University of Brighton)

15.00-16.30 Cloning Terror: The War of Photo Ops, 2001-2004
William J.T. Mitchell - Lieven Gevaert Chair Speaker (University of Chicago)

17.30 Official Opening of the exhibition of new photowork by Allan Sekula,
STUK by Denise Vandevoort (Alderman of Culture of the City of Leuven), Hilde
Van Gelder (K.U.Leuven) and Allan Sekula

18.00 Reception


Sunday September 4

09.30-10.15 Beyond compassion. How to escape the victim frame in social
documentary photography today. Some notes on the making of a
multi-disciplinary project on the situation of refugees in Belgium
Inge Henneman (Photomuseum Antwerp - Editor in chief Fotomuseum Magazine)

10.15-11.00 Depicting the Contemporary Artist's Studio
Wouter Davidts (University of Ghent)

11.00-11.30 Break

11.30-12.15 Against Affirmative Culture: René Block's Appropriation of
Capitalist Realism
Catharina Manchanda (CUNY)

12.15-13.00 Horizontal Montage and the Subjects of Labour
Steve Edwards (Open University)

13.00-14.15 Lunch

14.15-15.30 Plenary Session 1: Debate on the historical impact of social
realism on contemporary art
Moderator: Hilde Van Gelder (K.U. Leuven)
Discussants: Allan Sekula, Steve Edwards, Inge Henneman, Steven Jacobs, Eva
Brems (University of Ghent) and Frits Gierstberg (Photomuseum Rotterdam)

16.00-17.15 Plenary Session 2: Debate on the theoretical aspects of critical
realism today
Moderator: Jan Baetens (K.U.Leuven)
Discussants: William J.T. Mitchell, David Green, Wouter Davidts, Catharina
Manchanda, Liesbeth Decan and Maarten Vanvolsem

17.15 -17.30 Concluding remarks by Hilde Van Gelder

___________________________________________

REGISTRATION
Entrance is free. Please register by sending an e-mail to:
rein.desle@arts.kuleuven.be

CONFERENCE BROCHURE
http://www.lievengevaertcentre.be/symposium_sekula.pdf

ORGANISATION
Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography and Visual Studies
[KULeuven]. For more information: rein.desle@arts.kuleuven.be or 32 (0)16
32 48 79.

WHAT COMES AFTER: CITIES, ART AND RECOVERY

WHAT COMES AFTER: CITIES, ART AND RECOVERY
An International Summit
September 8-11, 2005

How do people make sense of their daily lives after catastrophe? How do art
and culture return meaning to places of devastation? How have artists
contributed to renewal, hope, and reconciliation while insisting on
remembrance? Over three days of roundtable discussions, performances, films,
and arts installations in all media, Cities, Art and Recovery will consider
how people remember and rebuild after tragedy and how the arts have been
crucial to such recovery.

Join Lower Manhattan Cultural Council this September 8-11 in the first of
two international summits focused on the arts and culture after catastrophe.
Artists, performers, writers, architects, lawyers, scholars, activists,
community and political leaders from a range of contexts that have been
directly affected and transformed by violence will gather in downtown
Manhattan in a public exchange of stories, strategies, ideas and memories.
Over three days of roundtable discussions, performances, films, and arts
installations in all media, Cities, Art and Recovery will consider how
people remember and rebuild after tragedy and how the arts have been crucial
to such recovery.


Roundtables:
The Design of Recovery
What are the political and aesthetic challenges of rebuilding after
disaster? How do architects and planners balance utilitarian, economic and
technological issues against those of environment, cultural heritage and
local practice?

Afterword: The Language of Recovery
What are the demands placed on language and writing by disaster? How does
writing after catastrophe work as advocacy, witness, mirror, mourning, elegy
or indictment?

The Arts of Emergency
How are artists provoked by the mechanisms of destruction and terror? How
does photography, painting and performance intervene to restore face and
voice, expose the erasures of history and demand recognition?

Revenge, Reparation, Reconciliation
How can artistic media be used by formerly hostile groups to reconcile
opposing points of view, recognize divergent historical narratives and
promote trust? What cultural strategies do advocates, jurists and activists
employ to effect accountability and foster healing?

Remembrance, Repetition, Residue
What is the relationship of memory and forgetting to the recovery of daily
life after trauma? How are the arts of memory - museums, memorials,
archives - sentinels of the future?

The Arts of Possibility
Can cultural and symbolic forms help to imagine a future while always
remembering the past and mourning loss? Can artistic strategies serve as
antidotes to revenge, sorrow and despair to restore hope, encourage safety,
and return the promise of tomorrow?


Schedule:
Thursday, September 8
6:00 pm Opening Reception
8:00 pm Performance: Diamanda Galas Defixiones (NY Premiere)

Friday, September 9
9:00 am Keynote Breakfast
10:30 am Arts Tours: What Comes After
2:00 pm Roundtable: The Design of Recovery
4:30 pm Homage to Susan Sontag
7:30 pm Film screening

Saturday, September 10
9:00 am Keynote Breakfast: United Nations speaker
10:15 am Roundtable: Afterword: The Language of Recovery
1:30 pm Roundtable: The Arts of Emergency
3:45 pm Homage to Edward Said
4:30 pm Roundtable: Revenge, Reparation, Reconciliation
7:30 pm Film screening
8:00 pm Performance: Diamanda Galas Defixiones

Sunday, September 11
9:00 am Keynote Breakfast
10:15 am Roundtable: Remembrance, Repetition, Residue
Remembrance of 9/11: Performance/Readings
3:00 pm Roundtable: The Arts of Possibility
9:00 pm Performance: Political Cabaret, Joe's Pub
11:00 pm Closing party: Joe's Pub

Registration information announced on August 22, 2005.

For details and additional programming, visit www.lmcc.net/recovery

Contact:
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
120 Broadway
31 Floor
New York NY 10271

Chris Jordan

Check out the work of Chris Jordan
He was featured this Sunday in the NYT.
ARTS / ART & DESIGN | July 24, 2005
A Great Big Beautiful Pile of Junk
By PHILIP GEFTER (NYT) News

Here is a statement from his website.

As I explore around our country’s industrial yards and waste facilities, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical, full of irony, even strangely beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity. Perhaps our vast piles of junk can serve as visual metaphors for the difficult questions that we Americans face as the earth's most voracious resource gluttons. Chris Jordan

Tim Edensor - British Industrial Ruins

In the past three decades of the 20th century, the Western world has witnessed massive industrial restructuring. New service and information technology industries have replaced the old heavy industries which saw countries such as Britain, workshop of the world and home of the industrial revolution, export its products worldwide. The buildings which house these new industries – the large retail sheds and factory units on new industrial estates – are replacing the often capacious stone and brick-built factories and warehouses which accommodated the assembly lines of mass production. These structures, nestling alongside railways and canals, are suddenly obsolete. Very often they are quickly demolished or converted into upmarket living spaces for the new middle classes, ironically the very personnel who work in the new cultural, service and information industries which are replacing the manufacturing production which was housed in the buildings in which they now live. However, across the old industrial nations, many old factories are evacuated and then left to decay. In the old industrial districts of cities and towns, derelict mills, foundries, engineering workshops and storage depots slowly crumble into disrepair. Especially in those urban areas which lack inward investment to demolish, replace or convert such buildings, these ruins linger, thwarting the attempts of city imagineers and marketers to create new visions that might help to sell their city to potential investors.
Tim Edensor - British Industrial Ruins

AIDS in Culture

AIDS in Culture is an annual conference organised by Enkidu Magazine in Mexico City in cooperation with CENSIDA the national Mexican AIDS-organisation, CONAPRED (the national Mexican Anti-Discrimination Council) and ADETEA (the Association of Anthropology Students at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico in Toluca). In 2004 the conference was organised in CENADEH, the National Center for Human Rights in Mexico City. In 2005 the conference will be held in Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican Pacific Coast.
AIDS in Culture