Creative Resistance: Responding to Protracted Violence Through Art

How do creative practices represent and interrogate both immediate and protracted forms of violence in the context of war and ecocide in different time periods, and different regions affected by conflict and environmental changes? What role do artistic interventions play in addressing the silences and erasures that result from historical and ongoing forms of violence? And how can artistic forms help us understand genealogies of modern slow violence?

This panel examines the intersections of theoretical frameworks and artistic practices to explore the long-term impacts of hostilities, displacement, and ecological degradation. Through an interdisciplinary approach, it considers how less visible, cumulative harms persist over time, and how creative methodologies engage with the lived realities of affected human and non-human communities. Our discussion seeks to move beyond dominant narrative structures by analysing alternative ways of representing the multiple temporalities of violence.

We invite proposals for 20-minute research papers, and we welcome applications addressing historic and cultural connections in the broadest sense, not limited to modernity. We welcome applications from creative practitioners, activists, GLAM professionals and researchers at all career stages. Please get in touch with the convenors if you have any questions.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Constance Uzwyshyn, University of Cambridge, chu21@cam.ac.uk

Olenka Syaivo Dmytryk, University of Cambridge, od241@cam.ac.uk