Call for Papers: AAG
Visualising with the ‘Other’: collaborative art
practices and politics
Convenors:
Research interest in visual art, and in
particular methods and practices using visual art, is burgeoning in the social
sciences, including human geography. The focus on art - as a media form, as a
subject, as methodology, and in dissemination in research, policy and other
texts - has evolved from being simply about textual
representations, text
and context. Recently there has
also been a growth of interest in collaborative research strategies that build
meaningful and effective participation beyond ‘traditional’
research groups, emphasising empowerment and transformation in research
practices and processes. Art is gaining popularity as one of the methods,
strategies and/or outcomes of such collaborations. These two approaches, in
dialogue or in combination, have potential for challenging and rethinking the
parameters of ‘art history’ and ‘visual culture’, as
well as geography as a visual discipline.
Historically, in the public sphere, terms
such as ‘art’ have had elitist connotations. This has delimited both
access to and the meaning of art, operating to exclude sections of certain
societies and groups from the production and consumption of art and art spaces.
Here, we are engaging with a notion of art to include those normally outside
the art and social science academies. The session aims to showcase the work of
those involved in producing collaborative art practice that allows for
mediating between those marginalised from ‘art’ and its spaces and
research practice itself. The aim here is to consider the ways in which these
new research practices with visual art can contribute to new theories and
challenges to notions of art as history, art as an inclusive culture, and its
potential to make the academy more accessible to those groups normally only
involved as ‘community’ or ‘other’.
This session aims to:
Contributors might wish to address
questions at the nexus of visual methods and collaborative research literatures
and practices in geography and elsewhere, including:
· How can collaborative research using art
help us rethink the ‘other’ in theory and practice?
· Can we move towards a transcultural art
theory?
· What are the spaces and spatialities of
collaborative art research practice?
· How are notions of ‘lay’ and
‘professional’ art recast through collaborative research?
· How do researchers navigate between
sometimes conflicting principles and practices?
Please send an abstract of 150 words
(maximum) to us by the deadline of 10th October 2007.
Please these to both
Dr
Department of Geography
+44 (0)191 3341876
Social Well-Being and Spatial Justice
cluster
Editor: ACME:
An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
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Participatory Geographies Working Group