CALL FOR PAPERS: Activist Imaginaries: Art and Curatorial Practice as Collaborative Endeavour
- Region: All Regions
- Type: Call for Papers
- Cost: Free
Bilingual, themed issue (English and Spanish). REGAC Journal of Global Studies and Contemporary Art (Research group AGI – Art, Globalization, Interculturality, University of Barcelona).
Guest editor: Chiara Sgaramella, PhD. (Universitat Politècnica de València)
Collaboration is by no means new in the field of art production. It pertains to a series of varied attempts throughout Modern and Contemporary art history to transcend individual authorship, redefine artistic autonomy and democratize access to the practice and fruition of the arts.
The works of authors such as Grant Kester, Claire Bishop, Aida Sánchez de Serdio, Chantal Mouffe or Florian Malzacher, among many others, have delved into its different manifestations and denominations in the contemporary art scene (socially engaged art, collaborative art, dialogical aesthetics, among others) as well as its potential to question hegemonic modes of cultural production, often embedded in the neoliberal system. These artistic processes, frequently adopting a context specific approach and intersecting activist practices, contribute to prefiguring other ways of conceiving and building collectivity, outside of the capitalist logic. In a sociopolitical context marked by multiple global crises and within a cultural sphere dominated by competition, precariousness and market speculation, these art manifestations generate and sustain, through solidarity-based creativity, spaces or communities of aesthetic experimentation, knowledge creation, political resistance and care.
Scholars, however, have also emphasized points of tension and criticalities related to collaborative art practice. While reframing the traditional roles of artists, curators and audiences, these art expressions may reinstate power hierarchies and modes of commodification of creative processes. From here several questions arise: How can art complement and sustain political and social action without appropriating collective struggles and experiences? In what ways do socially engaged initiatives contribute to transform structures of cultural production? How do artists and collectives address problematic power asymmetries within their own creative process and prevent forms of cognitive extractivism? Can growing institutional and academic recognition contribute to depoliticize collective art practices as well as reintroduce them in the conventional art circuits and value-generating systems? How can theoretical reflection on these cultural manifestations be decolonized through non-Western-centric conceptualizations and studies?
Through this call we invite artists, curators and researchers to send academic contributions that may prompt a critical reflection on these practices while also exploring multiple perspectives and methodologies.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
– Genealogies of collaboration in art beyond the Global North
– Collaborative artistic research
– Strategies of resistance: alliances between arts and social movements
– Collaborative arts and the commons
– Feminist frameworks of collaboration in the arts
– Assemblies and gatherings as generative strategies
– Collaborative perspectives on curating
– Transdisciplinary practice in response to ecosocial issues
– Art experimentations with more-than-human communities
– Collective Pedagogies and artistic processes
– Translocal networks of collective art practice
– Political and aesthetic dimensions of collaborative initiatives
– Ethics of collective engagement
– Hybrid methodological approaches to investigate collaborative praxis
Submission deadline: May 15th, 2024.
Instructions for Authors:
REGAC is an indexed journal. All contributions must be original and follow the APA referencing system (see http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REGAC/about/submissions). Originals will be submitted to peer review through a double-blind review process by specialists in the field. Accordingly, the Editorial Board has final say over the publication of the text. Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work, simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. See: http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REGAC/about/submissions#copyrightNotice.
Submission Guidelines:
Articles must be written in English or Spanish. Manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s) and must not have been previously published, Length should be between 20.000 and 40.000 characters (approximately 3.000-6.000 words), including references. The author is responsible for obtaining the corresponding permits for the reproduction of copyright material or images included in the text. Please follow the link for further details: https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REGAC/about/submissions
All manuscripts should be prepared for double-blind review. This means that manuscripts should not include the author’s name(s), institution(s), or other identifying features.