Geographical research over the last decade has seen an upsurge in interest in arts. The critical potential of arts as tools for knowledge production is increasingly taken into account in scientific debates. This session aims at considering the spatial experimentations implemented in geographical research that deals with arts and challenges classical methodologies by means of arts. What can geographers learn from the integration of arts into their research protocols and how to work with arts within scientific research? What kind of critical knowledge can be produced through artistic spatial experiments and geographical artistic performances?

This session welcomes papers that critically attend to two major issues that reflect broader concerns about the place and role of arts in scientific, social and political debates :

1) Spatialities of artistic spatial experiments : What socio-spatial contexts of implementation can be identified considering artistic spatial experiments? How does artistic spatial experiment contribute to transform social spaces and places, in terms of embodiment, time-space perception, social and political engagement ?

2) Knowledge production and the integration of arts: How are the different actors – 

researchers, artists, targeted people  and groups etc. – involved in the processes 

of  spatial knowledge production? What are the ethical and deontological  stakes 

of  such experiments? Can art destabilize classical methodologies in geography 

and help frame new (in-) disciplinary challenges?

Submissions are welcomed in English and French. If you are interested in participating, please send an abstract of max 250 words by 31 January 2015. Please indicate your name, affiliation and contact in addition with your abstract.

Contacts:

Camille Boichot: [log in to unmask]

Sarah Mekdjian:[log in to unmask]