CFP | AAH | SUMMER SYMPOSIUM 2024 | AGENTS OF CHANGE
Agents of Change: Process, Transformation and Decentring Art’s Histories
2024 DECR Summer Symposium for PhD and Early Career Researchers
Call for Papers
Apply by 29 May 2024 (extended deadline)
Symposium Date: Friday 28 June 2024, 10am-6pm
Location: Liverpool John Moores University
Keynote: Christine Eyene, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art (Liverpool John Moores University) and Research Curator (Tate Liverpool)
In art history, significant change can be of material or social impact. Art emerges and evolves from complex subjective, material and social processes. These can often involve radical transformations and critical attempts to decentre art’s histories.
What are the social or material processes of change artworks can embody, engendering and blending possibilities at the intersections of art and science, or art and activism? Which aesthetic or alchemical transformations can impact profoundly on known frameworks of art history? How do artists, cultural agents, and art movements inspire changes that shift focus away from the dominant narratives and discourses of art history, towards those historically characterised as being ‘in the periphery’ of the Global North? This symposium offers an opportunity to examine pivotal moments of change and explore their impact in detail.
Agents of Change is the Association for Art History’s 2024 Summer Symposium. Held at Liverpool John Moores University, this gathering will bring together a group of emerging researchers thinking critically about how decentring approaches can incite significant changes in art and society alike. Each of the symposium’s selected speakers will focus on the themes of process, transformation and decentring in their research, exploring from a variety of perspectives, the underlying processes through which art can function as an agent of change. As art historians and researchers of visual and material culture, our reflections on how art affects change requires interdisciplinary enquiries. Focusing on subjective, material or socially triggering processes, we invite considerations from PhD and early career researchers working in fields across visual, social, and material culture studies.
Researchers are encouraged to reflect on generative creative processes and artistic and curatorial practices that aim to decentre art’s histories and promote systemic change. Broader topics may include, but will not be limited to:
- Material processes in art
- Communal and socially engaged art processes
- Art and science
- Ecological art
- Visual arts and alchemy
- Decolonising artistic and curatorial practices
- Non-Western art
- Art and the Anthropocene
- Feminist and queer art histories
- Art, activism and social change
- Post-war Avant-Garde
- Outsider art
How to Apply
To apply, please fill out the brief form linked here. You will be asked for the following information:
Name, email and institutional affiliation
300-word abstract and the title of your 12-minute paper
200-word biography
Apply by the extended deadline of 29 May 2024
If accepted, you will be invited to deliver a 12-minute talk accompanied by slides in person. You are expected to attend the full-day programme in support of your fellow researchers’ work. No remote/pre-recorded papers will be accepted. Incomplete applications and alternative formats will not be considered. If you have any questions, please write to us at DECR@forarthistory.org.uk.
Downloadable / printable PDF of CFP available here.
Eligibility
This conference is for current or recent PhD students and early career researchers in the arts, humanities, and museum sector broadly defined. We will not be accepting applications from MA students (including those starting a PhD in autumn 2024) and warmly direct you to the Association for Art History’s annual New Voices event. We will also not accept applications from faculty with permanent jobs, but will prioritise junior members of our field who are students or in temporary employment. You may be an experienced conference presenter, or this might be your first time speaking at a conference. The Summer Symposium is a warm and welcoming place where we can practice presenting our research publicly.
DECR Committee
This symposium is organised by DECR Committee members Bea Gassmann de Sousa (University College London), Amy Melia (Liverpool John Moores University), and Sonny Ruggiero (University of Edinburgh). The Doctoral and Early Career Research (DECR) Committee is a volunteer board that drives the Association for Art History’s doctoral and early career research events and initiatives. Find out more here.
Image: Madeleine Mbida, Eight in Red (detail), 2016. Oil paint on canvas, 99 x 80 cm. Private collection. Courtesy the artist.