With full apologies for the receipt of cross-posts
 
PLYMOUTH COLLEGE OF ART ANNOUNCE:
 
3RD AND FINAL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS FOR ACADEMIC PAPERS AND PRACTICE-
BASED 
CASE STUDIES
 
MAKING FUTURES
THE CRAFTS IN THE CONTEXT OF EMERGING GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY 
AGENDAS
 
CONFERENCE WEBSITE AT: http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/ 
         
CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKER: PROFESSOR RICHARD SENNETT (USA)
 
‘Making Futures’ will be held on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th September 
2009 within the magnificently sited Mount Edgcumbe estate on the River 
Tamar opposite the city of Plymouth, Devon, UK.
 
This is the 3RD AND FINAL CALL FOR ABSTRACTS.
 
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CLOSING DATE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS HAS 
BEEN 
EXTENDED TO FRIDAY 1st MAY 2009.
 
The first two calls have generated an excellent response from Europe and the 
Anglophone world, but the closing date has been extended by one month to 
allow 
the call to disseminate further on East Asian networks. 
 
‘Making Futures’ invites submissions from craft practitioners, curators, 
historians, 
theorists, campaigners, activists, and representatives from public and private 
institutions with an interest in the relationship between the contemporary 
crafts and 
sustainability issues. 
 
CONFERENCE AIMS:
 
The aims of the ‘Making Futures’ research conference are to improve 
understanding 
of the ways in which the contemporary crafts are responding to ideas and 
agendas 
connected with global environmental and sustainability issues. Also, to try to 
discern 
whether these new imperatives present opportunities for the crafts to redefine 
and 
reconstitute themselves as less marginalised, more centrally productive forces 
in 
society.
 
The crafts, perhaps more than many areas of creative practice, have 
instinctively 
strong affinities with concerns for environmentally responsible and sustainable 
development. For example, Western craft ideals (perhaps less so realities) 
have 
typically sought to mobilise aesthetic experience as a key dimension and 
expression 
of responsible living in the face of mass industrialization - through their 
empathy 
with natural materials and the natural world, and through ‘slow’ and 
cooperative 
models of living. Indeed, important initiatives in pursuit of ethical and 
sustainable 
development objectives continue to take place within craft enterprises and 
agencies 
today. But the fact remains that our understanding of the interactions 
between the 
contemporary crafts and the modern environmental and 
sustainability ‘movements’ 
remains largely uncharted, unrepresented and under-theorised. 
 
‘Making Futures’ takes up this challenge and will explore the ways in which 
environmental and sustainability discourses might be leading to new 
formulations, or 
re-articulations, of craft practices, identities, positions and markets, in ways 
that 
might engage more directly with contemporary social, cultural and economic 
needs. 
Perhaps even, to recover ideological purpose.
 
CONFERENCE SCOPE:
 
The conference scope is international and will welcome accounts from non-
western 
contexts, especially those experiencing rapid industrial and urban development 
and 
newly expanding consumer markets. These will be contrasted with analysis 
from 
within the so-called post-industrial economies of the West in order to 
generate 
comparative insights and heighten awareness of the trans-national nature of 
many of 
the issues. The conference is therefore interested in inputs arising from across 
the 
full spectrum of crafts practice today. This includes makers of individual works 
who 
place a premium on traditional processes, locales, skills and haptic qualities; 
designer-makers producing limited editions and batch-produced artifacts; and 
artist-
craftspeople whose work might be more conceptually-based - perhaps 
consciously 
drawing upon cross-disciplinary and hybridized practices to critically reflect 
upon 
global dialogues and forms of exchange. 
 
This inclusiveness of practice and trans-cultural perspective will in all 
instances be 
grounded in studies that evince convincing connections with ethical, 
environmental 
and sustainability concerns. 
 
FOR FULL DETAILS PLEASE VISIT THE CONFERENCE WEBSITE AT:
http://makingfutures.plymouthart.ac.uk/ 
 
For further information, contact <[log in to unmask]>
 
Please circulate this call as appropriate.
 

 
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